So, I’ve been working hard lately trying to find everything a place…. a home where it remains…. it’s part of my “Get Organized” resolution.
How to hang laundry room shelves CHEAP!
The laundry room has become the BLACK HOLE of this apartment!
We are fortunate enough that our place came with a rather large laundry room for an apartment. All the apartments I’ve ever lived in had the laundry room tucked into a small closet in the kitchen- so this is a nice change. (Have I mentioned how ready I am to be back in a house! Patience, patience, patience…. it’s coming, I’m working on it- houses go rather quick up here).
Anyway, so we have this large laundry room with 1 shelf. Yep, just one! They splurge on giving you a large laundry room but nothing to make it useable. Oh, I digress. So, remember when I told you guys about this AWESOME store called the Habitat for Humanity Restore…. well, I have been addicted to going!
I found these large wood (their faux wood- the ones that come in pre-fab bookcases) shelves for just $2 each…. so I got 3.
And, they even had the brackets for $1 each…. so I got 6 of those.
Now, I’m not a big fan of this laminate, particle board look… I am a fan of the extra storage space these babies are going to give me. But, alas, as I told my husband…. I am a craft/DIY blogger and I’m not putting something up that I think is ugly…. so I beautified them!
I raided my fabric stash (oh, I know you’ve got one—we all do)… I think I paid like $1 a yard for this stuff! And grabbed my glue gun….
Then I just secured the fabric with the glue…. think of it like wrapping a present but using fabric and glue instead of paper and tape….
Once covered and to my prettiness standard I was off to hang the brackets.
Now, usually I’m a slacker and I like to just line things up by site- I hate taking the time to measure and level and all that- but when dealing with shelving- you need to make sure you do all that tedious stuff!
So, start out where you want your first shelf. Use a stud finder to find the stud- you MUST anchor shelves into a stud or else they’re not going to do you much good! (I love this little baby that my husband bought me- it’s a stud finder and laser level in one!) Hold your bracket up to the wall where the stud is, take a pen and put a dot inside each hole. Then drill a hole in each dot.
Next, you’ll want to hang your first bracket, so get some wood screws (yes, wood screws—you’re drilling into the stud so you need good screws so your shelf will stay up—I don’t know about you, but I load my shelves UP! 
) Take the screws and drill them through the holes in your bracket into the wall.
Now, you need to line up your next bracket. Use your laser level to find where the next bracket needs to go so it’s even with your first bracket. And make sure there’s a stud there too!
Then just repeat the steps that you did for your first bracket.
Once you get all your brackets up you will need to secure your shelves to the brackets. I took little wood screws about 1/2 inch long and drilled them through the holes in the brackets through the shelf. You don’t want your screws to be longer than the thickness of your shelf because you don’t want them to stick out the other side… that’s why I use the tiny ones.
