Our basement in the new house wasn’t fully finished when we purchased it. A ton of work (done by us and our parents) went into finishing it almost completely (only the laundry room and a back storage room are left to finish in the (distant) future.
The basement stairs (which were completely torn down and rebuilt by Jake and his dad) lead up to a doorway in the kitchen. The stairwell has been painted, a new hand rail installed, and we’re planning to carpet the stairs in the next several months.
Jake and his dad are home appraisers, and they see all kinds of interesting things during work hours – and some of them are really weird, and some of them are really cool. Jake’s dad, Roger, saw a house that had ledge-style shelves at the end of their hallway for family photos. He immediately thought of our stairwell space and showed us a picture.
It’s a perfect suggestion for our space! I’ve kept it in the back of my mind since he suggested it, and recently we made it happen – and that’s what I want to show you today.
Here’s our space before we did anything – you can see the unfinished stairs here, but just forgive us – we’re working on this house one project at a time.
We purchased these ledges from Walmart. They’re the Mainstays brand, found here. We purchased three of these for our stairwell landing.
They came with paper stencils to help you measure and install the anchors. Jake put them up – and it took some work because we’re both fairly specific about having the measurements just right and perfectly level.
Once they were up, I decorated the shelves. I didn’t go out and buy a bunch of new things for the shelves. I shopped my own home first – I found faux plants, cookbooks, pottery, and this “hello” sign. I also bought two frames from Ross for under $8 each and framed some family photos. I also found this round rattan mirror for $5 at Five Below. When Jake was finishing putting up the final shelf ledge, I gathered the items and grouped them together by the shelf I wanted to put them on.
Then, I decorated! Here’s a time lapse of the process.
It was pretty easy to get the items on the shelf since I had already grouped them together. There was an item or two that I didn’t end up using, but overall, I used almost all of the décor items I had gathered.
I’m really happy with the end result! I’d love to hear what you think – or how you decorate similar spots in your home in the comments!
Kate with a Twang 
That turned out really cute! I’m working on a gallery wall for my hall… frames are up but no pictures in them yet. It’s been at least a month! Haha. I have a picture ledge in the living room… just one a bit longer with just pictures on it, but I really like what you’ve done.
LikeLike