Mr Shelf

I know my garage sales. And one thing I do know is that different areas of St Louis, will yield you different 'finds'. Older parts will score you older things (thank you Captain Obvious). Newer yuppier parts sell newer clothes, newer trinkets.

I'm not likely to score big (in the town I'm currently living in) when it comes to outfits for my kids (altho sometimes I do!) -- if that's what I'm looking for, I'd most likely head to West County.

But here in my town, 20 miles south of the city, there's a potpourri of finds.
Like this little number...
Thank you wonderful shelf.
But I gotta tell ya, when I found Mr Shelf, he looked a lot different than this. For starters, he was blue (& I don't mean sad). His brackets were hung so that I knew he was more of a horizontal hottie.

The first thing I did was knock out one of the "internal wall" (for lack of a better term). I wanted to get rid of the symmetry. I also wanted to go tall (like me!). So I banged newer brackets in at the ends to make Mr Shelf an "up & down" number.

My next order of biz was the color. I took the "bitter green" paint, which has went SO far for our family. Bitter green was first used for our basement walls, then our cabinet (which will make its debut next), then other accessories (such as this great shelf) for our first baby's nursery.

And now that we no longer have babies (yet instead, toddlerhood & preschoolhood rule our lives) we don't need a shelf for a nursery (as the nursery no longer exists). And Mr Shelf was promoted, to the KITCHEN.

And goodbye went the chunky board books & choo-choos.
And hello to antique porcelain quails (25 cents at garage sale).

And plastic retro metal-handled mugs (a nickel, I'm not even joking).

price of old blue boring shelf, $1.00

paint, $0.00 (free, leftover from basement)

bracket, $.50

voila!: $1.50 awesome one-of-a-kind shelf