Happy new year everyone!
I don’t know about you, but the start of a new year always awakens my urge to slim down my belongings. Some people start the year full of good intentions to quit smoking or they go on a diet or cleanse; I want to start tidying the house. So the first three days of 2017 I spent getting rid of quite some clutter and clothes I haven’t worn in years but are still taking up space. Especially now that we moved to such a small house, I get more and more Marikondo-esque fits where I just want to throw out everything.
I am very bad at just throwing out things knowing they can be re-used in some way. I always donate my clothes to friends and charity shops and whenever I can, I repurpose materials.
Lately I have been getting more and more into succulents (as has the rest of the world in 2016 according to my Instagram!)and I’ve been trying to propagate some of them. Since we don’t have a lot of space to put these various nursery projects of mine and James doesn’t like me cluttering up the few window sills we do have, I needed a space saving solution. I’ve seen these beautiful retro scandi hanging shelves come by on pinterest, Etsy and instagram. Some of them made with metal, ribbon or old belts. The first bin bag for charity I managed to fill up happened to have a few belts in it and so I decided to give it a try today.
The pictures are of a somewhat poor quality, sorry about that. I didn’t start the project until late in the day and so the daylight was gone.
STEP 1: find your shelf.
This project is dead simple, especially if you already happen to have a bit of wood lying around to use as the actual shelf. We always have bits of wood everywhere in the house, so I didn’t have to go out and buy or cut any. I used a 18 mm plywood for my shelf.
STEP 2: Cut your belt to size.
The belt I chose was pretty wide and so I decided I would cut it into two elegant slim halves. I started cutting my belt with scissors and I should have known that was a bad idea. See, the thing is, I am a horrible cutter. This is what my half of the belt looked like after I attacked it with my scissor skills.
I then decided to use a knife. Much better plan. Decide on your own cutting device, scissors are probably the fastest and easiest way. By the way, I didn’t measure anything as I just laid the two pieces on top of each other to make sure they were exactly the same length.
STEP 3: drill holes in the belt pieces.
If you’re really lazy like I am, just fold your two pieces of belt together and lay all four layers on top of each other so you only have to drill once. I suppose you could also pierce the belt with a pick of some sort but since you need a drill to make a hole in the wall to hang the thing anyway, drilling is the fastest and most accurate way.
STEP 4: Find a screw and little washer.
The washer (little flat ring) is optional, but I just think it looks nicer. Remember, the nicest type of screw to use is a mushroom head screw, like the ones I used for my photograph on forex project. Mushroom head screws stay on top of the surface, so they don’t wiggle themselves into the material.
I think it just looks so much slicker with that washer
STEP 5: find a wall plug, measure with level,drill holes in wall, hammer wall plug in.
STEP 6: Screw both belt loops into the wall
STEP 7: place your shelf in the hanging loops and.. voila!
Shelf’s your uncle! (for you non native Brit readers: it’s a British word joke)
