Sequins & Sofas: My Father the Hero

Back to the house....growing up, I was lucky to have a very handy and innovative dad who liked to build stuff (walls, secret club houses in garage rafters, spiral staircases hidden under a trap door in a main floor closet that led to our basement rec room, more walls). In our current family home up north, the house is filled with shelves. Awesome floor to ceiling shelves with a simple yet sophisticated design....engineered to hold an elephant (if one could fit in a room and then figure out how to climb on stuff).

I knew right away upon starting my house buying adventures 2 or so years ago that when/if I ever found a house, these shelves were to be Project #1. Each time I viewed a potential house, the first thought was "where would the shelves go?"

As you know, that day came and I wasted no time calling him up to make my 'appointment'. We emailed some ideas back and fourth and he gave me a list of needed supplies based on some rough measurements. My original thoughts:

Upon his arrival, he spent a good portion of the evening before 'the build' doing math. Lots of math...

We came up with an awesome layout that allowed for extra space where the TV would go...in case I ever wanted to upgrade from the ginormous 27" screen I am currently rockin. Mama and I made a few trips to Menards because I got the wrong size/style of screws (twice) and he got to work cutting boards and mapping out the wall:

My intention was to take lots of pictures of the progress, but then my washer and dryer was delivered and the dryer wouldn't fit thru the basement doorframe. (Really? Thanks a lot sales guy who could have told me that before I bought it since I stood right in front of him measuring out the washer as I commented about how my doorway was quite narrow and I didn't have any room to spare...sorry, mini rant complete. And also, Boo!) I got a bit distracted with managing that little headache and then had to quickly head off to work....so at the end of the day, I returned home to this magical work of art:

Wowza....how excited was I?? Very. They made the trip back up north the following morning and I was left with the task of painting. Spackled the holes, sanded any rough edges and taped off the wall- ready:

It took a bunch of hours, then a bunch more hours of waiting for them to dry so I could fill them up with stuff. And let me tell you, it was worth every second:

Thanks Dad for making my all my shelf dreams come true! Love.