one new bookshelf, one less piece of Ikea furniture

I've wanted to replace our janky Ikea bookshelf for a few years now, so I finally drew up a plan this weekend for a new set of shelves that would fit our space a bit better. We found some great reclaimed lumber at a nearby salvage warehouse, and built the support structure from plumbing pipe.

 We wanted the shelves to be 14" apart to house our vinyl collection, so between each shelf we had to use a combination of 12" pipe, a coupler, a closed thread, and a T-joint. The T-joint was connected to a perpendicular 12"pipe, secured to the wall with a flange. 

Our sound system runs through the bookshelf, so I tried to conceal the audio equipment as much as possible. I liked the contrast of stacking this small speaker on top of a vintage radio, so it almost seems like the sound is coming from the radio.

In the far corner of the bookshelf, we set up our Kindle Fire and the volume control for the speaker system. Both items are small enough, they aren't even noticeable on the shelf.

The open sides of the bookshelf presented an issue for displaying all our records. I found three of these wine crates at the salvage warehouse and was thrilled to discover they were the perfect height to hold vinyl!

All in all, it took Adam and I about four hours (and four Home Depot trips!) to complete this bookcase. I can't believe I put off building it for so long!

I recently commissioned this new dining room table from Brett, a very talented friend of mine. There were only a few specific things I was looking for- I wanted the top to have smaller pieces to it, I wanted it to extend to accommodate our large dinner parties, and I wanted some industrial metal element included in the legs. He built the entire table without revealing any details to me, and dropped it off last night. Not only is it gorgeous, but it can seat a million people!

Brett used angle irons wrapped around stripped down 2x4s for the legs, and they appear to be solid metal until inspected from under the table.

I can't wait to host a dinner party on this new, huge extension table! It comfortably seats fourteen people when extended.