Linen and Books and Linen and Books, oh my!

Well, Mandy has asked me to create a post about the recent build here at 126 NEST, so here goes.

The boys room had two doorways out of it (in to it?) - that was one to many, and we didn't have a linen closet at all up stairs, and relegated some old cabinets to that job. Knowing that we were removing those cabinets, and Mandy knowing that we would want some storage and linen space we set out to transform one doorway into a workable linen closet. Here's the transformation!

Started out by framing out the interior space with 2x4s - made the actual linen holding space a bit bigger than the door so that we could hold more items in there.


Old ceiling is so much fun to find studs in!

Surrounded the inside of the closet with luan - finished this off very nicely, and give a good, yet inexpensive interior to that part of the closet.

We also decided that just a box in the boy's room would be a bit 'box-y', so we decided to create a book case on this side of the wall - thus the build would fulfill two purposes - closet space and book space.

On the inside of the linen closet, since the shelves aren't 'seen' as much, we use 3/8" plywood - 'nice' side up! Supported the shelves with 3/4x3/4 pine with the same as an under support along the length of the shelf - created a very heavy duty shelf with very little weight.

Here's a top view looking down on the bottom two shelves - 5 shelves total with 1' between, and 2' for the bottom and top shelves - fits Laundry baskets in the bottom, and tall items in the top - the middle holds the rest of the linen and whatnot to put in there.

On the bookshelf side, we lined the inside of the bookshelves with the same Luan, and put a piece of the 3/8" plywood on the 'boys' side - let's see them break that - enough drywall screws in those studs to start a small steel plant.

Here's the linen closet filled to capacity! Mandy was so excited about all of the places she could empty and put in here. Notice the stack of laundry baskets in the bottom, the sheets and washcloths stacked so nicely, and towels!! All of the laundry soaps and whatnot stored in one place, instead of on the washer! What a treat to get all of this from so many places and get it into one place! Next up is a curtain to cover this up and look 'pretty'

And here are the completed bookshelves!
The picture of kids on shelves is iconic for me - my three brothers and I were set up like this when I was a kid and Dad installed a pantry in the kitchen for Mom. So, on 5 of the 6 shelves on this set, we have 5 of our 7 kids - the oldest and youngest not pictured.

We used 1x12 for the shelves, and tacked on a trim piece to the front - they are very sturdy and should be able to hold a full set of books - also, the side is very sturdy and wouldn't give when I pushed on it, so that's pleasing - now, just a bit of finish caulking and paint, and we'll call this one done!