It’s week THREE of the One Room Challenge, and today I’m showing off the AMAZING industrial farmhouse pipe shelves that my husband built for our music room/office! (Can you believe we’re halfway through this challenge already??) If you’re visiting for the first time, you’ll want to start with my Mood Board and Room Design and then check out the Paint and New Layout.
Originally, I was planning on including a step-by-step tutorial on how we built them in this post, but that just got to be insanely long! So today I’m just sharing the finished product…but I won’t leave you hanging, I’m sharing the tutorial next week, pinky swear! (UPDATE – see our full pipe shelf tutorial here!)
If you remember the way this room used to look, we had a big bookshelf in between the two windows. It was very functional for us, as I used it to store all my music books, our Bibles and other Bible Study books, and several other odds and ends. But the style of that shelf wasn’t going to fit with the new room, plus I really wanted to open that wall a bit more.
I knew from the beginning of this room design that I wanted pipe shelves, though I wasn’t exactly sure how to configure them in this space with the piano and all. I toyed with the idea of just doing a few shelves above the desk, but we needed more space than that, so I settled on a full set of floor to ceiling shelves on the short wall next to the doorway, where the piano used to be:
And here’s how they turned out!
I wanted to leave room at the bottom underneath the shelves for easy vacuuming/cleaning, and also for the possibility of putting some crates under there for more storage if we need it. Visually, not having the shelves go all the way to the floor really makes it feel more open and spacious in that corner.
I don’t think this is the final version of how I’ll style these shelves, but it’s pretty close. I tried to mix some more industrial elements – the concrete planters and candle, plus the galvanized elements – with some more farmhousey type things, like the wicker tray and vintage books.
I love having all my music books displayed, too. The really old sheet music came from my great-aunt’s house when we got the piano. It’s not just for show, either – I have gotten it out to play a few times! There’s also a mix of vocal music from my voice study in college and other songbooks from my teaching days.
It was quite the project…there were no studs even close to where we needed them to be, so my husband actually had to cut holes in the drywall and attach blocking to the studs so we’d have something to anchor the shelves into. More on that in the tutorial post, but it was definitely worth all the hassle. These shelves are super sturdy, that’s for sure!
And so you can peek at the progress of the room, here’s how this corner is looking right now:
Of course, I have big plans for that big empty wall above the desk! I’ve got some galvanized wall organizers, a neat farmhouse style perpetual calendar, and an “office” sign, plus a few more little elements that will go together in on the wall there. I’m trying to decide if I just want a desk lamp or if I want to attempt a wall sconce there above the desk, like this one…what do you think? Too much? Hmmmm…
Be sure to stop by again next Thursday for another room update! (And don’t forget to browse through the rest of the One Room Challenge Week 3 room updates for even more inspiration!)
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The shelves look fab. Can he come build me some too?! ;)
I love the shelves! They are perfect for easily switching out function vs. seasonal! Wonderfully done :)
I Looove these pipe shelves – so well done! Can’t wait to see more.
Love them! And they are beautifully styled too. It’s great that they can accommodate your sheet music and other things that are special to you- I love having things that are both functional and meaningful as part of the room design. Can’t wait to see next week!
Love, love, love these shelves. I want to copy these exactly for the man cave. The guys love industrial in their space and you totally nailed it!. I Also spied the bugle on the top shelf. How old is it? What key? I can’t really tell. Here’s a fun fact. I was going to be a piano major in college, but switched to instrumental emphasis (trumpet major). Yep, how crazy is that? Anyhoo, I LOVE seeing your room coming together. It should come live in my house. LOL.. XO Susie from The Chelsea Project
Thanks so much Susie!! The bugle is my husband’s from his boy scouting days…I don’t know anything about it other than my kids always want to get it down and play it, so to the top shelf it went, haha. But it makes for fun decor! ;-) So great to meet another blogging musician – I was a trombone player turned voice major! I’m so glad to finally be creating a dedicated music room space that we all WANT to spend time in…music is so important to our family, it was about time we tackled this room. Thanks for your sweet words!
What length pipe did you have to put between the connector and the flange at the top?
All our vertical pieces were 12″ and the horizonal pieces were 6″ – you can see more details of how we built the shelves here!