Elfa shelving!
Yay! The Elfa shelving in the dining room is finally up and fully loaded with books. Sorry for the grainy photos, our dining room doesn’t get a lot of light and my camera is fussy.
It was more than a little nerve wracking putting the shelves up: everything hangs from a single horizontal rail at the top! This makes installation fairly easy, but wow…it was scary putting all those heavy books on there. It’s been 36 hours and it’s still on the wall, though, so hopefully everything is going to be okay. We’re very happy with how it looks, and are now planning to put in more shelving on the other side of the fireplace. It will be great to have all of our books (minus the comics and graphic novels…ugh) put away!
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I am seriously going to have to order some of those, they look so simple and classy!
The dining room looks gorgeous!
I have enough dog hair on my bedroom floor to swiffer it up and make an entirely new dog. You have color coordinated your books. Can you come over and just … coach me?
M, believe me, there are a million areas of the house that I’m not posting pictures of because they are total horrorshows! Selective editing…
I love the idea of the one step hanging system, but would have the same fear as you about the weight. We recently had a HUGE framed vintage poster come crashing down - glass everywhere, damaged print… but it was only leaning against the wall, not hung. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you. The shelves (as well as the other images of your home) look fabulous.
Ugh! Susan! That’s a terrifying story, and believe me, I was Googling phrases like “elfa horror stories” and “elfa no studs anchors fell” for about half an hour before I could bring myself to put the first book on there!! (Hah, now some other person Googling those things is going to find this site.) I have to say, the anchors the Container Store sells (several different kinds for different wall types) are pretty serious business. The shelves have now been up since Sunday, and they SEEM like they’re going to be fine. Also, if you wanted to, you could just drill holes in the metal track to line up with your studs to be on the extra-safe side, though Elfa apparently doesn’t require it.
I used elfa shelves once for my utility room and found that they were pretty strong, no problems. For books, though, I’d be SCARED and is a reason i haven’t put up shelves on the wall yet here. I have a million and one books. If they can make a regular wood shelf sag, how is that weight transferred with the wall? i am going to pay the guy who does the renovations on our house to put them up, at least that way I can blame somebody when they rip a hole in the wall and I can see into the neighbors’ house on the other side……!!!!!!!
well.. i know the dog hair story, i have enough dog hair in my whole house to make a whole sledding team… our big dog Zizou (we have two, my boyfriend crash! and his adopted sister Zizou) has some sort of allergy. She’s like a flat haired retriever. I sweep the living room in the morning (which is already like 750square feet) and by noon it is already FULL of hair, a ball the size of crash!, and she show no signs of shedding on her body.
The shelves look great & the color grouping of books is a great touch. I don’t like organizing bookcases by size & that’s a great idea! As long as the shelves are fastened into studs at the top, I bet they’ll be plenty strong.
I love your dining room and you have my favorite Stefan chairs in red. Mine have logged quite a few years and are still in great condition. I will replace them one day as dining chairs but I’ll keep them forever as occasional chairs. They are that classic looking.