Transform A Sunny Window Into A Plant Shelf Without Any Tools

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You've got to love a large window that lets in warm, golden light all day. A spacious window is one of the best places to hang plants in your home, but if you're a renter, making holes in your borrowed ceiling is often not an option. Enter the clear acrylic window shelf that will make plants seem to hover miraculously on the glass. Attached with a row of large suction cups, your small plants can go vertical with nary a drill hole in sight. Walmart's Mainstays Clear Window Plant Shelf has been racking up the likes on social media. Its combo of practicality and trendy wavy edge are causing this item to fly off the shelves.

The shelf is rated to hold up to 14 pounds, and at 13 inches long and nearly 7 inches deep, it looks more than ready to hold small pots or propagation containers. While many reviewers gush with praise for the Mainstays plant shelf, there are some who have stamped the product with a one-star review. You probably won't be surprised to learn that it's the suction cups that earn the shelf a poor rating. Some reviewers were frustrated enough to send their purchase to an early grave in the landfill.

You may have invested slightly less than $10 for the shelf and are debating returning it. Maybe you're dying for something like this but are turned off by the one-star reviews. Don't fret: There are solutions for both dilemmas.

Wavy edges are an up and coming home design trend, and that could magnetize many to the Mainstays plant shelf. You can still use it with less worry by swapping the suction cups out for transparent adhesive hooks. Highly-rated JINSHUNFA Adhesive Hooks hooks have clear backs and thin, yet strong, wire hooks that should fit through the four suction up holes in the back of the shelf. Each hook holds up to 13 pounds, and a row of these hooks has the potential for lots more hold than just one.

You may be concerned about whether Walmart is a socially responsible company and choose to shell out your hard-earned dollars somewhere else. Amazon offers the highly-rated (yet arguably less cute) RSSCIIIUL 2-Piece Plant Window Shelf that has an additional suction cup and offset bracing that, according to reviews, seem to be more reliable than Walmart's product. Granted, Amazon purchases present many of the same issues, but this company may raise fewer personal qualms than Walmart.

Save your money for other things and repurpose plastic water bottles for a hanging propagation or growing station instead. While it won't be quite as aesthetically pleasing as a clear, wavy-edged shelf topped with decorative pots, a collection of used plastic bottles outfitted with a hanging hole and a leafy cutting can be nice-looking, as well. Snip out the upper front quarter of a bottle, poke a hole in the back, and slide it onto a clear adhesive hook attached to your window. Filled with water or soil and cascading greenery, the bottle will hardly be the first thing you notice about the setup.