Shelves are Pretty Cool

I have a major dislike of all things boring; especially white walls - to me, they are vapid, blank, and dull. Last year my husband and I picked up a bunch of pictures his mother donated to us to cover my glaring white walls. I recently discovered shelves. I realize that they have been around a lot longer than I have, and it seems weird I didn't think of it before, but I didn't. Then I remembered my Grandpa Hoving liked making wood crafts. He made a bunch of shelves and they were just waiting in the barn, gathering dust. So last Friday Phil and I visited the barn.
While we were I told my mom what I was up to and she volunteered some glass shelves she purchased some years back and just never got around to hanging up (Thanks Mom, they look great!).
See Mom? Phil put them up that same day we got them. He's hard at work on the wooden shelves, too. He has taken some of them apart and sanded them down, stained them, and lacquered them.
The Glass Shelves actually replaced wooden ones already up in our bedroom. They look really nice. (And just for the record, the jewelry on my shelf is all costume jewelry, and the chest holds stamps. The only pieces of jewelry I own worth any money are my wedding rings, and that's not even worth robbing me for. We are living on love, not money).

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So the other shelves are cool, too. Mom gave us a wooden one she bought years ago and doesn't use, it's the one with the open circle in it. Phil took it apart and is going to stain it to match the other two from our room. The two long ones are going to be stained as well, I feel a little bad covering up the hand painted flowers, but I haven't made a decision yet. I am going to put one long shelf in the kitchen above the stove to hold the stuff that clutters the top of the fridge. It's going to look very cool. We had to take down the picture that was in the kitchen, and so we re-used it.

The shelf on the bottom right of the collage has a very cool scrolly thing going on and we haven't decided what to do with it yet, but rest assured, it will be sanded down, stained, lacquered and sanded again. And we will bind a use for it.

I plan to inscribe each piece "Created by Robert Hoving 2000-2005, Refinished by Phil Chapin 11/2008" or something to that extent so that generations from now people will know who made those shelves.

We took the kitchen picture apart and used the frame and the matting to showcase my husband's novelty T-Shirt of Foamy the Squirrel. I don't care for Foamy, but he says it's a collectible and the T -Shirt itself isn't offensive (It says, "Squirrely Wrath" and the pin says "DO NOT! Anger the Master"). He really likes it, and honestly, you gotta pick your battles.