I have seen these rain gutter bookshelves several places online and have always thought they would be wonderful to have in our book loving home. Then I saw them at my friend Heather’s house, asked if she liked them, how easy they were to clean, etc. and I finally decided to take the plunge.
The theory behind these rain gutter book shelves is that they encourage children to read more because they can see the fronts of the books and are intrigued, rather than just seeing the edge of the book and not being able to tell what it is about. Our children have always read a lot, but the little ones are reading even more since we installed these shelves.
The first day that the shelves were in, my two year old, upon waking from his nap, grabbed a book and came running out asking me to read it to him. All the children are reading more of our books and several of the older ones were heard saying, “Oh, I forgot we had that book, it’s one of my favorites” about a book that had 
been on the book shelves in their bedroom for the past year or so! These rain gutter book shelves also make it easy for little ones to put the books back away properly and that makes mommy happy!
Rain gutter shelves won’t hold a ton of books, not nearly as many as the same space used for traditional shelving. However, they certainly are prettier and much easier for young children to help themselves without making a mess. Plus, our children are reading the books that are on the rain gutter shelving more than they ever read them when they were shelved more traditionally in their bedrooms.
I installed rain gutter shelves by each child’s bed to give our room-sharing children some space to keep their favorite books and stuffed animals.
Since Mark has been so amazingly busy with his job and since I was too impatient to wait until he had some free time, I installed the shelves myself. They were quick and easy to install. I did both of the children’s bedrooms in an afternoon and did the shelves in the hall (top picture) in a couple hours.
Here are my perfectionist, not-very familiar-with-power-tools instructions for installing your own rain gutter book shelves.
Items needed:
- Vinyl rain gutters – Our rain gutter shelves are all 5 feet or 2 1/2 feet long and the gutters come in 10 foot lengths.
- Brackets for the rain gutters – I used either 2 or 3 brackets per 5 feet of shelving depending on how much use I thought the shelf would get.
- End caps for the rain gutters. Be sure to get the appropriate number of right and left end caps.
- Wood screws that will fit through the hole in the brackets.
- Hack saw
- Sand paper
- Sharpie marker
- Tape measure
- Drill
- Level
- Marking pencil
- Stud finder – unless you are good at the whole hammer tap/listening thing
- Spackle and paint – You only need this when you mess up.
1. Decide the length that you want your shelf to be. Measure and mark this length on the shelf with the Sharpie. Since I’m one of those perfectionist types and not so handy with a hack saw, I measured and marked six different places around the gutter and then connected the dots so that I had a solid line to cut on.
2. Cut the rain gutter with the hack saw. I did this part on our stairs. The carpet held the gutter still and I had space to saw between the steps. It worked for me!
3. Sand the cut edges smooth. Yes, you could probably skip this step since you will be covering the ends with an end cap, but it’s that perfectionist thing again. Good thing Mark does most of the projects around our house.
4. Decide where you want to put the shelves and find and mark the studs. Find a stud that is close to where you want one end of the shelf to be and that will be within the shelf area. Mark with your marking pencil. Now find the studs within the next 5 foot area (if that is the length of shelf that you are installing) or just find the stud on the other end of that 5 foot stretch. (HINT: Typically studs should be every 16″.)
5. Determine the height that you want the top of the shelf to be and mark that point on one of the studs that will be close to the end of the shelf.
6. Using the wood screw and the drill, screw a bracket into the point that you just marked. HINT: If the screw will not drill all the way into the wall and you think that perhaps you hit a nail head (it is possible), well, before you drill another hole a little higher than the first and it still won’t go in and certainly before you drill a third hole and still can’t get the screw to go into the stud, have your 12-year old daughter check to make certain that the drill is set to screw things IN rather than to screw things OUT.
Not I would know anything about that, I’m just thinking that it is excellent that I know how to Spackle and paint! 
7. Level the shelf. Place the gutter onto the bracket that is already screwed into the wall and place another bracket onto the opposite end of the gutter. Now balance or hold a level on the gutter and adjust until everything is level. Then mark where you will screw your next hole on the stud that is closest to the other end of your gutter.
8. Screw the bracket into the stud at the marked height. Tuh duh! You should have a shelf on your wall. Now depending on where you’ve installed the shelf or how long it is, you may want to put on additional brackets. If so…
9. Install additional brackets for stability. This is simply a matter of sliding them onto the gutter and making sure that you hit a stud when you screw them in.
10. Glue on the end caps.
11. Repeat steps 1-10 for additional shelves. I found that 12″-16″ from the top rim of one gutter to the top rim of the other was sufficient for even our tallest books, but measure for yourself and see what looks good to you.
I’d love to see your version of rain gutter shelves, just leave a link in the comments.
I added close up pictures of the brackets and end caps here .
Check out some of my other DIY tutorials.
Wonder Why We Homeschool, or How We Homeschool with 10 children? How do we fit everything in, save money or keep our sense of humor? You can find these topics and more by checking out the category bar at the top of the page.
For ideas to fill up your bookshelves, check out Mandy’s book review blog To Read, Or Not To Read.
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thanks so much for sharing the idea, and the detailed instructions, too. not only is this project cost-effective and creative, having the book covers displayed makes for gorgeously colorful, cheerful decor. cutecutecute! i’ve linked on my blog (puppylovepreschool.blogspot.com.)
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I love this idea. thanks
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We had this idea also, but gave up on it after purchasing the gutters (they are in the garage still!) Yours turned out AMAZING!
We couldn’t figure out the ends. What exactly did you use for end caps & where did you get them or make them from? Can you add a picture of the ends? I would love to give this another chance, as my girls have bunk beds & there are ALWAYS books in their beds! LOL *God Bless* -Melissa
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Raising Olives Reply:
September 19th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Melissa,
We purchased the end caps that were made to fit the gutters. I will plan on adding a picture of the end caps to this post later today. I just used a little bit of hot glue to keep them on.
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I love this site. You have a great blog.
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Okay I went to Lowes today & Purchased a few end caps. Next Question is what Brackets did you use? I cant tell in the pics. THANKS!
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Alex- you can spray paint just about anything.
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Thanks for the reply! We did figure out the end caps, Its the Brackets I cant figure out? Are they also in the same area & specifically for the gutters? Or just special screw? I’d love to make these today!
THANKS A BUNCH!
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Melissa,
Yes, the brackets are in the same area and are made specifically for the gutters. Hope it goes well! It’s such a fun satisfying project!
Kimberly
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This is an awesome idea!!!
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Thanks! You are a blessing!!!
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I love this soooo much!! Fantastic, so clever! Can’t wait to get my hubby back from Iraq and put some in our next house.
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Just an idea… look for a Habitat for Humanity Re-Store near you. They sell all sorts of donated home building materials and may have the gutter supplies at a great price.
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LOVE the idea! Thanks for sharing. After reading this I went out and bought some supplies myself and installed them in my boys room. Here’s the link if you’d like to see: http://dianagardner.blogspot.com/2009/10/rain-gutter-bookshelves.html
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Raising Olives Reply:
October 14th, 2009 at 6:44 am
Your shelves look great Diana. Thanks for sharing.
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Wonderful idea! Thanks for the inspiration!
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This is wonderful! I am going to e-mail it to my daughter! And I’d love to post a link to it on my blog if that is okay with you!
Martha
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Raising Olives Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
I’d love to have you link to this on your blog. Thank you.
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Absolutely AWESOME idea! I showed this to my husband because our daughter is such a bookworm and her books are all over the floor that it was driving me nuts!! Well, my husband finally got around to putting this up in her room and it looks AMAZING! She loves it, too! So thanks for posting this idea and how tp get it up!!
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Raising Olives Reply:
October 19th, 2009 at 4:39 am
I’m glad that you liked the idea, now I hope that it actually helps your daughter keep her books off of the floor. I’m still constantly telling the children to pick up their books.
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We used your tutorial to install two rain gutter shelves for our 2.5 year old this weekend. Now a previously unused wall is home to dozens of books and our daughter loves it! Thanks!
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Raising Olives Reply:
October 20th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
I’m glad that you’re happy with them. Thanks for letting me know.
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Kimberly – here is my post link!! Rain Gutter Bookshelves from RaisingOlives.com
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Thanks so much for the idea and instructions! I just put mine up and absolutely love them. I also couldn’t believe how EASY this project was. It only took me about 20 min for 2 5ft. shelves. Thanks again!!!
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Raising Olives Reply:
October 27th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Yay! I’m glad that you like them. They are easy. It probably took me more time to write the post than to install the shelves.
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Wow, this is a great tutorial. We move soon, and I’m definitely going to be putting these up in my son’s new room. I found your site through design dazzle– I’m going to be a regular reader from now onwards.
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Genius! Positively genius! I wish I could give you a hug! These will be PERFECT for my son’s playhouse! Thank you for sharing the tutorial!!!
http://cutest-little-things.blogspot.com/2009/09/little-boys-playhouse-revealed.html
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I’m over the moon about these! Affordable, easy to install, look darling, and encourage reading… if only they washed diapers! I can’t wait to try!
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This is an amazingly creative idea! Well done.
I like that it lets kids see the cover of the books they want.
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This is a fantastic idea!! Thank you for sharing!
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Love it!!!
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I’m confoozed about where we’re supposed to be leaving our comments–here or on Design Dazzle–so I’ve left one on each. And you already noticed that I linked–happy to mention it, I think it’s a great idea.
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Raising Olives Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 4:01 am
Thanks Mama Squirrel. Please leave comments at Design Dazzle. It is a bit confusing to me also. Thank you for your help!
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Great idea and wonderful pics!
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I loved your rain gutter shelves. I have 5 children I would have loved to have them when they were little. I think I will still install them in our study/homework room to encourage additional reading of some old favorites.
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So cute! We have so many books crammed into bookshelves that are not getting read! Instead, the same books get read over and over while some of the best ones are hidden in that bookshelf. This would really help and it looks great! Thanks for the instructions (and the honesty… too funny! sounds just like something I would do!)
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Oh wow! I love this idea! I’m going to bookmark this tutorial and do this. It would solve so many of our clutter problems! This is great! Thanks for the wonderful idea!
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I just wanted to stop by and let you know that you were in the top ten tutorials on Ucreate!! If you could email me your address info I would love to send you a prize!! Thanks for sharing your creativity and inspiration!!
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