out on the ledge

...picture ledge!  i have been wanting to put some pictures on the wall up above the couch for awhile now.  i think i painted the living room 5 or 6 months ago, so it's been a small project that i wanted to get done for awhile now.  i thought it would be nice to have some picture ledges up so that i didn't have to hang all those frames, and to make it easier to switch things out later on.  i saw that ikea had some that were much less expensive than the ones at restoration hardware and other places.  but, then i saw on pinterest that people had some tutorials on how to build them.  and i thought, "huh, i could build those".  and i thought i could probably build them for half the price of the ikea ones.  i loosely followed the tutorial on this blog here with some minor changes, for instances, instead of nailing the boards together, i screwed them, and i also used wood glue.  and then, for the front ledge i used wood glue to stick it on, and it seems pretty secure.  i used some wood filler to try to smooth things out, especially because i used white wood which is kind of cheap.  then i painted the ledges white.  after the second coat, i could see how uneven the ledges looked, so i sanded the crap out of the front ledge with the palm sander and some 80 grit sandpaper.  muuuch better (learn from my mistake---if you use wood filler, make sure to sand sand sand to smooth it all out)!  then i repainted them it it looked great.  hubs and i hung by screwing them into the studs and i added all the pics.  oh, so, because i needed so many picture frames (i need so many more to hang stuff up all over the rest of the house) i decided to check out what goodwill had.  and i was pleasantly surprised.  i scored some frames that were oak that i painted white and i also got some frames that were black and looked just fine, and some frames that were still in their original packaging and were basically brand new.  they ranged in price from 99 cents to $3.99 so it was such a bargain.  so anyway, i'm happy with how the ledges turned out.  i still have a few more frames i want to hang on the wall beneath the ledges though.  i think the ledges cost me about $13 total (i already had the screws, sandpaper, wood filler and paint).  and i would have paid around $45-50 for all the ledges that i wanted at ikea.  wooohooo!  check 'em out:

 i also hung up a few frames on this side of the room, and was able to de-clutter the top of the bookshelf:

 now i just need to add a mirror above the fireplace and a small gallery of pics above the tv/entertainment area.  i still want to build a mantel and re-tile the fireplace at some point, too.  and make some faux roman shades to put over those narrow windows.  but this part of the living room is looking sparse.  oh, don't mind the chairs and stuff in front of the tv, that's how we child proof it around here, haha:

so, have you all been doing any fun projects?