Easy, No Tools Required, Window Shelves

I have a dream of living on a homestead, growing most of my own food, and having lots of animals.

But right now I live in a condo with no private yard and a 1 dog/1 cat animal limit, so I need to start really small.

I have been wanting to start an indoor herb garden over the winter for a few years now.

I also had a bunch of plants out on my back deck that I needed to bring inside before it gets too cold outside.

Plus, my mom told me I wouldn’t be able to fit all my plants inside, and I wanted to prove her wrong.

I don’t have the best window/lighting situation either, so I need to make use of the limited window space I have.

The window in my office is a good spot. I haven’t had any window treatments on this window since I moved here almost five years ago.

I don’t want to install curtain rods or buy curtains; I kind of like the totally clean look of these windows, but a little bit of something in the window would be nice.

I also don’t want to put holes in the trim or invest the time necessary to install shelving.

Plus I have a small budget.

This weekend I came up with an idea that was budget-friendly, didn’t require any tools, and wouldn’t take too long to construct.

The window I wanted to put shelves in is 55″ long.

I have my grandma’s dining room table in that window. It’s my puzzle table. I love sitting there, but it’s a little bit bare.

I bought 40 bricks and four pre-cut 2″x6″x48″ boards at Lowe’s.

The bricks were $0.68 each, and the boards were $5 each.

I planned on getting boards cut down to about 53″, but the line in the lumber department was super long and I didn’t feel like waiting.

I saw the pre-cut boards and decided to give them a try.

I wasn’t sure how many bricks or boards I needed, but I figured I could return them if they didn’t work.

Altogether, the total for the bricks and boards was $47.20.

If you’ve ever played with wooden blocks, that’s the extent of skill you need to construct these shelves.

It took me a couple tries to figure out how high to make the “shelves”.

I stacked 6 bricks lengthwise on the window sill and then placed a board on top of them.

On either end of each board I placed a brick perpendicular to the six stacked bricks.

As luck would have it, the board plus the width of two bricks fit snugly and exactly into the length of the window which helped to give it stability.

I repeated this again with the second shelf.

I used a third board for the top shelf but didn’t place any bricks on the end because I ran out of bricks.

The height of the bricks is slightly taller than 2″, so I made a “shim” out of pieces of cardboard I folded to fill in the space between the top of the boards and the next course of bricks.

The shelves look like this:

Above each window I already had two plant hooks.

I also purchased two macrame plant hangers. They were my biggest investment at $10.98 each.

I wanted to put two of my spider plants in those because Kitty likes to eat spider plants so they need to be up high where she can’t get to them.

Plus the hanging plants would fill up space at the top of the window.

Now I have a place for small potted plants, and a place to start my indoor herb garden.

The color of the bricks goes well with the colors in my office.

And I like the unfinished look of the boards.

I am super happy with how this turned out!

I placed two of my bigger potted plants on the bench at the end of the table because nobody ever sits there.

Before, a blank, bare, lifeless window:

After, a natural, inviting space full of life.

Now all that’s missing is a new puzzle!