Levitate your books

Getting rid of books is against my religion, and after living in the same apartment for 10 years it was as if the walls were closing in on me.  It’s amazing how many books you can accumulate if you’re not paying attention.  My beautiful exposed brick wall was almost completely hidden behind a wall of books.  So, after some careful measuring and ladder borrowing I solved my problem by installing one massively long shelf about 12” down from the ceiling that wraps around 2 full sides of the room.  By using standard L-brackets upside down and in greater numbers, it was easy to create the look of a floating shelf (the antique bracket visible in the photo is a recent addition added to hang a plant off of and is not load bearing).  My new 32 linear feet of shelf space has allowed me to completely rid myself of all the other shelves mounted in the living room, and worked to make the space more open and comfortable.  If you feel like getting fancy, you can add lighting like I did by installing a simple track (that is wired with a cord with a wall plug) beneath the shelf.  At this time I only have a few inches of open shelf space left, but I still have two other walls on which to extend more shelving.  I guess I’d better track down that ladder again.

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