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October 20, 2005
hangable shelf
by sven at 9:06 am
Oh, yes, we enjoy the art on the Portland Open Studios tour. (But really it's the storage space ideas that we're after.)
Something we've been talking about for quite some time is the need for small shelves in the studio that we can display sculptures and knickknacks on. One of my personal hang-ups about this has been that I'm loath to commit to installing a shelf permanently in any one place. In a studio, you need to be able to move things around, rotate the art.
I didn't see anything on the tour that was what I wanted -- but the creative stimulation/fertilization did the trick nonetheless. I got it into my head that one could build a hangable shelf. Monday night I dove into the project... Three hours (plus drying time) later, this is what I got:
In the initial design I was connecting two eyebolts directly to the picture-hanging hooks on the wall. The problem there was that you have to get your hooks perfectly level with each other, or the shelf will tilt. So I added two more eyebolts and looped a bit of wire through them. Now the shelf hangs from the wire -- since it's a loop, there's a tiny bit of slack and you can adjust. Placing the hooks on the wall can also be done by eye-balling now, rather than having to measure. Here, take a look:
Since the shelf hangs out from the wall, I also needed to add a little lip on the back at the bottom to make it hang even with the wall. That's the other bit you're seeing here.
...Not bad! I didn't want to get too fancy on this first attempt -- but now that I've got proof-of-concept, I can see potentially making a longer shelf to keep around, too. Three feet wide, maybe?
posted by sven | October 20, 2005 9:06 AM | categories: sculpture, studio space