Levi's Reading Corner

When we transitioned Levi's room to his big boy room a few months back, I immediately knew the space across from his bed was destined to become a reading bench.  I even knew I wanted to use an IKEA Expedit shelf turned on its side as the bench.  But unfortunately for us, the nearest IKEA is about three hours away from us.  So we waited and waited patiently for someone to make the trip, and finally my sister came through a few weeks ago.
She didn't buy the Expedit shelf, but something that looked the same (I don't remember the name).  It was super easy to put together and then the boys helped me move it into Levi's room. Next, the bench needed a cushion. Again I had a plan and knew I needed a 5 foot section of foam and some fabric.  I headed out to Hancock Fabrics, but had a bit of sticker shock when my piece of foam was $85 (more than the bench itself!!!).  I knew Josh would have a mild stroke at that price, so I held off and tried Joann's instead.  It was cheaper to start plus it was on sale there, so I spent only $26 to get my foam (quite the improvement, right?!?).  I already had some fabric on hand (that I had used at both boys' birthday parties, so you may recognize it), so I wrapped my foam up, used some hot glue to secure it, and stuck it on the bench!

The reading corner was coming together, but next we needed a place for Levi's vast collection of books.  I'm sure you've seen rain gutter shelves aplenty on Pinterest and elsewhere, so obviously this was not an original idea.  But it was crazy affordable shelving!  I grabbed one 10-foot gutter ($5), cut it in half once I got home (I just used a hacksaw, and was even able to do it myself!), and had two shelves!  Josh hung them up for us this past weekend, and the boys were both eager to help me stock them with books.  I was pleasantly surprised at how many books they held!

And Levi was clearly very excited to try out his new reading nook!

You may have noticed that I didn't bother to really style the bottom shelves.  Levi has toys for them, but I'm not sure if I want to go all out with baskets or just let the toys hang.  So for now, we'll consider the reading corner complete!