THE bookcase

I think all I really need to do is post a before picture and you'll see why we needed a new solution for this space.

Yeah, that sooooo isnt' working.

We've been looking for a solution here for about 3 years, originally there was a smaller bookcase and what is pictured was an upgrade (borrowed from the guest bedroom.) After finding pieces priced from $200 - $450 and HIGHER, I had just about given up.

Then I found Ana's website. And more specifically, THIS bookcase.

I'm pretty fearless when it comes to home improvement/creative projects so it took me all of 2 seconds to decide to do it... thankfully my parents have a pick up truck and I convinced them to come see the grandchildren, little did they know we were also going to Lowes to buy the materials.

I'm not going to go through the materials list, or the step by step, Ana's got all that on her website... I will show a bit of our process and some of the things we learned. This post may be long, but believe me - once you get to the end and see the finished piece, you'll know it was worth it.

Ok, so we started out by mapping Ana's cut instructions and deciding that if we were going to do this, I wanted it exactly as I wanted it... so we increased the width by 4 inches.

And here is a bit of what we went through.

 

  

(We went with the furring strips instead of the finished 1x2's and 1x3's... this considerably increased our sanding, but we saved A LOT!)

 

We had to move the building into the kitchen when temperatures dipped WAY too low to keep working in the garage. My neat freak husband wasn't thrilled about this... so we moved to the foyer after that night)

 

Building done - let the priming/painting begin.

And this is when I noticed a problem... a big problem, the back looked awful, we went with the 1/4" plywood and should have gone with MDF or something, anything else.

So, it was back to Lowes where I picked up this paintable textured wall paper. Very happy with this solution and I've already got another project lined up to use the remaining wall paper.

So, are you ready to see the finished bookcase... Here it is:

 

 

In the next couple of days, I'll post more about what we've done with it... but I think I've rambled on long enough.

Oh - the budget. The final cost for the bookcase, MDF, Plywood, furring strips, nails, paint, wall paper... and likely a bunch of stuff I've forgotten, it cost: $90