diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 60850d3..7ca6972 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -15,4 +15,12 @@ currently, there's no reason to run this except for development. however, if you
 1. clone the repository
 2. copy `src/toastbin/config.sample.json` to `src/toastbin/config.json` 
 3. install dependencies (currently, we just need `flask` and `sqlalchemy` from python and `postgresql` from the system repos but this almost absoultely will change)
-4. run `src/toastbin/app.py` (`python3 src/toastbin/app.py`)
+4. set up database:
+```sql
+CREATE DATABASE toastbin WITH ENCODING = 'UTF8';
+CREATE USER toastbin WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD '{YOUR_PASSWORD}';
+GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE toastbin TO toastbin;
+ALTER DATABASE toastbin OWNER TO toastbin;
+\q
+```
+5. run `src/toastbin/app.py` (`python3 src/toastbin/app.py`)
diff --git a/src/toastbin/config.sample.json b/src/toastbin/config.sample.json
index 3ccd3ea..f1638ed 100644
--- a/src/toastbin/config.sample.json
+++ b/src/toastbin/config.sample.json
@@ -1,5 +1,12 @@
 {
     "instance": {
         "domain": "example.com"
+    },
+    "database": {
+        "username": "toastbin",
+        "password": "hunter2",
+        "port": "5432",
+        "location": "localhost",
+        "database": "toastbin"
     }
 }
diff --git a/src/toastbin/database.py b/src/toastbin/database.py
index 39c97f2..f470c82 100644
--- a/src/toastbin/database.py
+++ b/src/toastbin/database.py
@@ -1,3 +1,14 @@
 import sqlalchemy
+import json
 
-engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine('postgresql://') # todo: finish this, give users options maybe
+with open('config.json', 'r') as file:
+    config = json.load(file)
+username = config['database']['username']
+password = config['database']['password']
+port = config['database']['port']
+location = config['database']['location']
+database = config['database']['database']
+
+engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine('postgresql://' + username + ':' + password + '@' + location ':' + port + '/' + database) # todo: finish this, give users options maybe
+Session = sqlalchemy.orm.sessionmaker(bind=engine)
+session = Session()