Rain Gutter Shelves and Maps

A friend walked into our house the other day and was admiring our "remodel" when she remarked, "There are too many white walls for an Emily house."

And I would tend to agree, I like color and the warmth that color can bring but when we had everything redone because of the flooding I wanted a blank slate for the living/dining room areas, because we have a lot of color we apply to the walls in the forms of art and maps and things.

A few weeks ago I found the idea for Rain Gutter bookshelves on a blog called Raising Olives.
I fell in love immediately.
It was the answer to my book storage problem.
Namely, my kid-book storage problem.
Kid books come in all shapes and sizes and they don't "shelve" well so they end up stacked on a shelf and I end up reading the same few stories over and over again because the kids always grab the books on top.

BUT...

Now all the books are visible and they look nice and the kids can easily put them away!


Yes, those are rain gutters. Real, regular rain gutters hung on the wall.


And not only do I have those really cool book shelves but my husband also trimmed my wall maps with the extra trim we had lying around. (He also got our new shower rod put up yesterday, which makes three projects finished in one day after he passed his First Responder test yesterday morning! Yep, he's pretty much amazing.)

The walls are still white but I don't think we're lacking for color by any means.