DIY Rain Gutter Bookshelves (For Under $10!)

I’ve seen these rain gutter bookshelves all over Pinterest for ages now, (and really, who hasn’t?) and it seemed like a good idea… though I didn’t realize just HOW good of an idea until I started shopping around!

When it comes to children’s books, forward facing shelves are pretty much the way to go. When I worked at the library we had these shelves to feature the newest releases and all time classics in the peewees reading corners. And for good reason too – children are visual creatures. If you want your kids to be interested in reading, you need to make the books enticing, prominent and easily accessible. This isn’t just conjecture, there have been whole studies conducted proving this valuable point.

If you want your children to grow up with a love of books, or at least increase the likelihood that they will discover reading as a worthwhile hobby, make sure they have plenty of books available at all times, is an easy to reach and easy to view format.

While planning out and working on Tessa’s playroom remodel (click here to check out the finished playroom!) I knew forward facing shelves were in order. And after shopping around, I ended up falling back on my go-to furniture and home goods store for the purchase.. Ikea! Buuuuuuut, the price tag for their 1.5 foot little wooden shelves were $10 a pop.. for the amount of wall space I wanted covered, that put us at a hefty $80.

Around the time we were ready to make our purchase, I noticed that my friend Bree had put some rain gutter bookshelves in her children’s homeschool room, and I thought they were brilliant. After picking her brain on cost, she convinced me that these were the way to go. For once, Ikea did NOT win out cost wise! Haha..

But Bree cautioned me to buy the rain gutters at Home Depot, not Lowe’s, since the ones she got at Lowe’s were a bit flimsy. I’m normally a Lowe’s gal, but I followed her advice (and after checking out the rain gutters there, it looks like it was advice well heeded… they were far thinner and flimsier than the Home Depot gutters).

So anyway, grand total on my purchase? I picked up two 10 feet lengths of white rain gutter for $3.98 each. (Check it out on their website here!)

I had originally intended to buy the end caps for the rain gutters, and the mounting brackets (which is how the usual DIY tutorials suggest you do it) but money was tight and I was crazy impatient to get these bad boys up on the wall. So we took our $8 worth of rain gutters, cut them to size, and simply screwed them into the wall with some sturdy wood screws.

And you know what? They are perfect!

After cutting the gutters to size (something you can ask the staff at Home Depot to do for you at the store, if you don’t have a saw at home), you can easily dremel or file down the raw edges to make them smoother. I don’t see any kind of problem with keeping these shelves open ended, since we are not storing anything other than large board books in them.

When applying the screws into the back of the gutters to attach them to the wall, the books easily hide the screws, so there’s no need to color match or paint the screws. No further support is needed other than the screws, since the gutters are so strong. So the brackets are really only an aesthetic choice, not really a functional one, in my opinion.

And lastly, the gutters are a beautiful white, so I didn’t need to paint them as I’d originally planned. Just cut, screw and load up with books! Of course if you *wanted to* paint them, you totally could. But it’s totally optional!

EASY FREAKING PEASY!!

The best thing is, Tessa absolutely loves them. Even being the wee fifteen month old she is, she can easily reach the bottom shelf above her toy boxes, and when it’s story time, she points to which book she wants as I’m holding her up to see the shelves she can’t reach on her own just yet. Just as I’d hoped, her books are just as enticing to her as her toys, which stay stowed away in her boxes until she really really wants them.

I’m going to keep these rain gutter book shelves in mind for any future remodels, children’s corners, or even easy storage options in the garage or laundry room. It’s too thrifty to NOT keep in your back pocket!

What do you think of the rain gutter bookshelf revolution that’s taking Pinterest by storm? Do you like the look / concept? Yea or nay? Share below!