DIY Vinyl LP Record Album Floating Wall Shelves

Here's a simple and inexpensive shelving idea for displaying your LP 12" records! These come out and go in easily, and the shelf only needs to be cut down to the size you need. It's made out of vinyl so it is already white (or whichever color you choose) and will be super easy to keep clean.

Here's the finished product:

The two floating record shelves you see in this picture are approximately 88" long. The vinyl comes in 8' sections.

What you'll need for one 8' shelf:

• 1 White Vinyl Lattice U Cap (Item #94468 at Lowe's)
• 4 #8 x 0.5-in Flat-Head Zinc-Plated Screws (100/pack) (Item #57224 at Lowe's)
• 8 #8 x 7/16-in Zinc-Plated Standard Flat Washers (36/pack) (Item #58122 at Lowe's)
• 4 0.5-in x 2-in Zinc-Plated Flat Braces (4/pack) (Item #315712 at Lowe's) 
• Screws for mounting to the wall (we used drywall screws we had already)

Cut U cap with a jigsaw or something similar, if needed.

U cap lattice moulding.

This groove accommodates records perfectly.

 Looking at the back of your U cap, stack 2 washers together and then add a brace, and screw all 3 into the cap with a #8 x 0.5 flat head screw, making sure the screw does not protrude into the U cap channel. Repeat this process at equal distances along the length of the U cap. This goes U cap - 2 washers - flat head screw.

Hardware.

Back of the U cap shelf, 2 washers, 1 brace, 1 screw.

Grab a level and mount your shelves on the wall. Use the top hole on the brace and attach to the wall using drywall screws (or whatever you have). It's best to begin in the center of your shelf and work your way towards the ends, maintaining level as you go.

Records will slide in from either side (again, make sure none of those little flat head screws poked through) or you can place them into the groove.

Total cost for two 8' vinyl "vinyl" shelves was only $22!

2014's Resolution: Kitchen

2014's resolution for me was the kitchen. Instead, we gutted and rehabbed the bathroom. I'm not complaining, because the bathroom was hideously ugly and more importantly - it's DONE and I never have to do it again.

Now that the cold weather has arrived, I'm readying the cutters and sledge hammer for the kitchen. Waiting a year (by accident, really) has given me a chance to think on my old design, and I've come up with another I'm toying with.

Plan A: Counter seating

Plan A: Counter seating

Plan B: Built-in bench with round table

Plan B: Built-in bench with round table

I was really sold on the 2 stool/counter space before but now I'm not so sure.

Living without a Master Bath: Day 7

Guy and I are lucky. Not win-the-lottery lucky, but second-shower-on-premises lucky.

Our initial plan (True do-it-yourselfers know that you almost always end up throwing most of your first ideas out the window early on) was to remove the tile and put up new tile. The tiles are tiny and after chipping 893 (about 15 actually) off the walls, GUY (not me...) got the sledgehammer and we knocked the everloving crap out of the walls! Color ME surprised! It ended up being a good thing because under the window there was a tiny bit of mold and a lot of old carpenter ant damage. Even the studs needed repair in a couple areas, and we had to remove and replace some insulation.

Here's some progress photos.

Guy vs. Tile

Agg! Rotted/eaten wood!

Yeah, this piece of wood might as well have been paper

Insulation removed. This will wait till tomorrow.

Cutting out the rotten wood

New insulation and Durock cement board

All walls down, wood & insulation replaced and recessed shelves roughed in.

Pedestal sink all gone!

We had to remove some sanded grout that was on all three sides of the tub, who knew it would be so freaking difficult? We bought Sulfamic Acid Cleaner from the Home Depot to soften it. We saturated it and re-saturated it, then chipped it off. Yikes.

Next up is installing cement board walls then wall tiles. I'd like to get the shower up and running then demo the floor.

The online picture lacks detail

We did end up agreeing on using some mosaic tile. It's called "Silver Tip" and it's also from the Home Depot.

I love the metal bits!!

Kitchen Virtual Makeover

Thank GOD for computers and programs. I can only image how fucking divorced I'd be if I made Guy move things around multiple times to see what I liked in a room.

I found a totes awesome program that lets me move things around. I think I may have come up with a decent and fairly *cheap* way to get a better looking and more functional kitchen. Here's some reminder photos of my small and stupidly designed eat-in kitchen.

Let me tell you, my house layout is all over my neighborhood. BUT... since our house is a corner house, we have that back door, as see above. Other houses have the door on the side of the house, so they can use that space there for a table. If we do that, we block ourselves in and it feels congested and awful.

So conclusion: House builder fail.

Here's our current layout:

On the North side are our only cabinets plus sink and a table we've yet to actually use.

South side is an exit door, oven, a cart with booze and a microwave, fridge and wall that juts out to hide the chimney stack.

What I hate about this configuration:  No flow, at all. Not nearly enough counter space. Double sink (not seen in mockup) is really overkill. No dishwasher. No matter how we position a table it feels "wrong".

Meh.

Here's my proposed layout:

Here's what's good about this: We're reusing ALL the cabinetry. Would eliminate the metal microwave shelf. Would add some shelving, would add a DISHWASHER. Would extend countertop by a mile or so.

As you can see, seating would be built in. A risk? Maybe, but for us, it would really work. The big expense in this entire change would be a dishwasher, stools, and countertop. We already purchased a new sink (smaller and deeper) and paint for the cabinets is fairly cheap.

Our DIY White Office Shelves

Since we moved our workspaces around, we now had a nice section of the office to install some shelving in. We used a few brackets from the Home Depot and some melamine shelving.

 Here's the bare wall before:

And after:

Still loving that Benjamin Moore Davenport Tan on the walls!

The only thing I would have done differently was snapped up these brackets from Ikea:

Maybe next time, right?

Our STUNNING New Bathroom Shelves!

Whoa baby, get a load of my new gorgeous, GLASS bathroom shelves! They're Moen Kingsley Glass shelves.

We can never leave anything alone, they came in Antique Nickel but in order to make them match our dark fixtures, we spray painted them. Nice, eh?

Thanks loads to Guy's parents for hooking us up with these. I am in love!! The bathroom is small (this is our full bath) and this space was just vacant space above the toilet. It makes it much more, mm what's the word? Cozy?

We have a cozy bathroom now!