The Bunker Shelf Blog that is 3 months late

  I am excited to share with you one of my favorite projects we have done so far. It makes the FAVORITE list because it makes cooking way more enjoyable!

We have always planned on there being some sort of shelf in the kitchen area but our ideas were pretty vague. We would brainstorm and bounce ideas around but we find most of our inspiration comes from wandering down a Menards aisle.

ps. If any of you know my husband, you know he likes to keep things original. Therefore, if I ever state I got an idea from Pinterest, my idea gets thrown out. So, we really try over here to use our own creative juices or I just dont tell him where I got the idea from... 

On a cold Sunday, you would have found us wandering all those stores (Home Depot, Lowes, Menards) in search for good shelving material.  A few hours later, we came across a big pallet full of beams. These beams were ideal for our shelf but they all had hot pink streaks through them. It was a SITE folks. Here we are in our church clothes lifting and heaving these beams trying to find the best ones for the shelf. After we searched and moved the whole pallet of beams, we found 2! Our beams do have hot pink streaks in them, but they are actually hidden by the wall or the other beam. They were also only $15 a beam. I felt like we basically stole them from Home Depot!

Once we got them home, Derek started the fun process of mounting them to the wall. We used special anchors to make sure the beams would stay in place. We also ran cable lines from the ceiling to assure the beam did not swing out and bonk anyone on the head. By "bonk" I mean, knock someone unconscious. These things have some serious weight to them.

Once the beams were in place, Derek stared on the electrical. The basic purpose behind the shelf is to provide lighting in that corner of the room. We had though of all sorts of "light adding" ideas, but a shelf seemed to make the most sense. It provided storage, as well as appeal! Our exposed shelf is a bit unique because Derek added 6 pucket lights which are attached the the kitchen switch. And by add, I don't mean he just popped them in the shelf. The poor guy had to bore holes through 6 inch beams. Now when I turn on the lights for the main room (which is essentially the whole house), our kitchen shelf lights up as well!

Well folks. If you made it this far in the post, it means you must at least semi- keep up with our projects and Longshot. I owe you an apology. I have been seriously slacking in the blogging area! Thank you for being patient with me! We have 2 more fun projects coming up, as well as some gardening posts.Follow along as I try to convince Derek I don't always kill things I touch.

Until then. HAPPY EASTER!