Crappy Bookcase Beautification

 Bookcase Beautification! (With the Kids Wednesday!)

Here's a little tutorial on how I beautified some really ugly bookcases and it's....With the Kid's Wednesday, a couple days late :)

About four years ago, a family friend's mother passed away, and they offered me quite a few things out of her garage. I had just moved from HI, with pretty much nothing, and was willing to take and beautify about anything. 

Among the finds were two really ugly bookshelves. One was plywood, used for paint in her garage, and totally falling apart, and it just happened to be about the same size as a bookshelf inside that looked like the one below. 

*this one was found off craigslist, since I didn't have a picture of the original bookcase. I couldn't even find a picture bad enough to show what the plywood one looked like!

I painted them black, not long after I got them home, planning on doing more to them, but like a million other projects, they were stuffed in the basement, and left for a very....long.....time.....

until yesterday morning, when I came down to give them a little love. 

Obviously this is the one that was falling apart. Pretty nasty huh?!

First, I re-nailed the sides together, so we could minimize those gaps and sturdy the bookcase.

Then I had a little helper clean them with me. 

Then I took some molding with a nicely curved edge and these curtain rod ends that I found on clearance at Lowes awhile back and began the beautification process.

Don't worry, I didn't let her play with these. I was trying to get a picture of her and she wouldn't leave them alone. 

I cut and nailed the trim to the edges of the bookcase.

Ooops. If you try this, be careful to only hit the nail, or you'll have extra puttying to do!

Here is the trim around the frame of the bookcase. Then you have to putty any nail holes and gaps.

Then I took the curtain rod ends and screwed them into the bottom. Luckily, there were solid wood strips at the bottom. Still, I don't think these are going to be bookcases that we can scoot around. 

Now she has some legs. 

Then I had each of the older kids paint a shelf. Chloe was not happy to do this at first. 

But by the end, she wanted to paint more.  (we wear our clothes inside out when we paint...in case you're wondering).

Next, I took some fabric that I found at Craft Warehouse.

I used spray adhesive to attach it to the back.

Here's the top.

and the bottom, with a good picture of the legs. On this bookcase, the legs were slightly too far outside the frame, but I got it right on the next one. 

So we took this...

and we added paint black paint I already had (you can buy a quart for $8 at Hm Depot)

* $7.50 worth of fabric I bought with a 40% off coupon at Craft Warehouse.

                 * $5.00 worth of curtain rod ends that I used as legs. (I think they were around $2.50/pair on clearance at Lowes. If it wasn't too noticeable, I could have used wood rectangles in the back and only used a pretty pair in the front to save on cost. 

* $8 on trim. 

This is per bookcase.

Total cost for me (not counting the paint): $20.50/bookcase

Ooo, so much better! I have two of these and they're flanking the downstairs window. It's looking pretty cool!

Now onto quarter round, sewing pillows and embellishing some curtains!

--Katie

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