Starlit Shelving

In our tiny apartment, there is no room next to our bed (squeezed between a wall and a door) for a night stand, so Hannah proposed to build a shelf over the bed, high enough to reach while sitting, but with enough room to fit underneath. I proposed we make it out of peg board and stick a bunch of white Christmas lights in it to gussy it up. It turned out great, and we built it in a fun weekend.

We went to home depot, bought a $12 4x8 sheet of peg board, and three 8 foot 2x2s. We have no shop, so the guy at the D cut two 4x1 foot pieces off one end of the pegboard, then two 6x1 pieces the other way, and finally, the last piece into a pair of 2x3 footers to actually use as peg board behind project tables (not exactly any craftmanship there, but it gets the job done) I also had the 2x2s cut into a pair of 6 footers (should have been 59.5 inches to match the peg board after saw kerf ) and a pair of 4 footers. The 2x2s were just over $2 each. Add four $1 L brackets , a small box of your favorite wood screw size ($5) with optional washers($2), and $4 for 200 Christmas lights. All this makes a 4 foot shelf and a 6 foot shelf which fit really nicely over a queen sized bed in a corner. Lastly, mix in beer and peanutbutter cups and presto, a new shelf for under $40!

They worked out cooler than anticipated. These shelved would really benefit from being cantilevered from above, or from a little extra investment in nicer L brackets. When we move I'll try to reinstall them hung out from stuf mounted cables instead. Also, we used masking tape to hold down the lights until we could finish the whole sandwich, but I think there are better tapes for the job.

They feel a lot like we built a fort, which is good, and generally feel pretty magical.