It pays to have a handy husband

I have an entire board on pinterest dedicated just to shelves because I have kind of an obsession. I'm not the only one though because I can find plenty of pictures of people to pin and it ranks as one of my most followed boards. I also have one just for rooms made from closets, I am so weird.

Anyway, it didn't take long for me to stumble upon the idea of ladder shelves and though I recently talked about a vertical one I fell in love with at Ikea the house we currently live in is more suited towards a horizontal one. Check out the many options below.

A while back I rearranged our bedroom so there was room on either side of the bed, this was at The Beef's request because apparently starting your day by crawling over your significant others lifeless body is not idea. Going to the end of the bed was also an unpleasant experience due to a large elliptical that resides there. 

When the room was rearranged it suddenly opened up the possibilities for some wall space that I had previously only been kind of using. I decided a ladder would be perfect there. So one day when The Beef was bored but feeling handy he asked me for a project, I didn't have to hesitate for a moment and requested a ladder. The project was simple enough and it barely took an afternoon to complete. We didn't even need to leave the house for any of the necessary supplies. 

The next order of business was to stain it. I saw on pinterest that to age wood you could soak steel wool in vinegar for a few days to give it a grey color. I thought that might be a nice look. However it took me a few weeks to gather the supplies and then when I combined the ingredients I got sidetracked by life and let it sit for two long instead of the nice grey color I was hoping for I ended up with a rusty red. This was not what I wanted. 

Then I thought about it for a while and figured I should just leave it as it because this won't be our home for much longer and I'll be able to decide what color to stain in when we have a more permanant bedroom. Besides, I hadn't even figured out what to put on it yet.

Entering wedding planning and all other projects were completely thrown out the window. Though the ladder project was the first I wanted to tackle once the hoopla had died down because there was a ladder in my living room. But then I started a new job and the ladder moved to a less intrusive spot. However, the very night I finally got our wedding pictures I knew that this ladder would become my wedding shrine. I just had to go about plotting it out. 

Then Christmas happened which actually is what spurred me into action. A framed wedding photo of us given as a Christmas was what finally halted my procrastination. It was the same kind of fun frame I already had in my possession finally adding to the imagined symmetry I so desperately crave. Three more frames that were given as wedding frames added to the mix and I had the bulk of my shrine taken care of. 

Rounding out my frameaplooza were framed invitations from the wedding itself and the party a month later at my mothers house. From there all it took was one of our lanterns (I'd been dying to do SOMETHING with it) a tiny mason jar, a wrapped can and paper flowers from our center pieces finished it off nicely. 

Still something was off with the spacing, the project was finally completely mapped out when I got a hold of the decorative marriage certificate and a beautiful cross stitch my aunt did that she sent with our congrats on getting hitched card.

Tah-da!

My only hurdle then was to get it all up on the wall. This was a job for The Beef who wasn't home and would probably put it off for as long as I already had without the proper inspiration and since I'd finally gotten it all figured out I wanted it done NOW. So I hung it up, with a series of push pins and when I told him of my method he practically had a heart attack and put it up in a more secure way at once. Victory is mine!

It's a beautiful sight to wake up to every morning and I could not be happier with it.