Rain Gutter Book Shelves

When I first mentioned to Ben that I wanted to put up shelves made out of rain gutter, he gave me a funny look. I had my doubts as well, but I loved the idea of displaying our sizable picture book collection in a more child-friendly way. Jim Trelease, one of my favorite authors, suggested rain gutter shelves in his book The Read-Aloud Handbook.

The idea is that the traditional way of shelving books with the covers hidden and the spines out, is not enticing to children. He suggests that we should market literature to our children like cereal, with the covers out. Vinyl rain gutter is cheap, easily installed, kid friendly, and is perfect for holding picture books with the covers out.

What finally sold me on the idea, was when I finished Wesley's closet. For decoration, I displayed several board and picture books on the shelves of the closet, not realizing that Devin and Layne would suddenly find them interesting. They were always going into Wesley's closet and pulling the books off the shelves and asking me to read them.

Finally I convinced Ben that the book shelves would be a good investment and I was able to make a trip to Lowe's and buy a 10 foot length of vinyl rain gutter. I bought the wrong brackets and Ben had to take them back, but finally, we got them put up. The whole project cost $36 and took about an hour. I must say, I had my doubts at first, but I'm a believer now. They look great! Plus, Devin and Layne came to me tonight, their arms laden with books, asking me to read to them. We read eight books together tonight! Devin looked through the books commenting on ones he had read, ones he hadn't seen in a while, and some he had never read. I had forgotten about some of them too!

While we were putting them up, the boys were running their balls down the length of the gutters. They were so disappointed when they found out we were going to mount them horizontally.

Here are my finished bookshelves! If you want to make some for your little ones, check out the tutorial at Raising Olives.