DIY: Painting Bookshelves

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Since we did our office re-do, I had to figure out what to do with two dark brown wooden bookshelves that just didn’t fit in the office anymore. These bookshelves were originally part of our entertainment center, back before TVs hung on the wall!

In the office, the shelves held books, albums, and other random office stuff. This was what you saw when you walked in our front door and looked in the office, which looked like a hot mess… but I really didn’t have any other good place to put all of this stuff.

So, I got to thinking… when Stephen built my big desk and it was in place, I figured I would move these to the basement. We had an empty wall that, if kept together like this, I thought these would work perfectly on. I was planning on painting them either white or gray to match the decor in the basement better. BUT… once we got them down there, there were two problems. First, they made a walkway behind our couch kind of tight, and second, one of the shelves covered our heat/air controller.

So, I decided to separate the two! I painted one white (and spraypainted the knobs black) and put it in the basement kitchen area, on a blank spot on the wall.

The other one, I painted it with navy chalk paint and left it near the original spot of the shelves in the basement… just turned differently. That way, it didn’t affect the walking path or the AC controller.

Painting and repurposing furniture can be so much fun. Chalk paint makes the painting part super easy! These shelves have come a long way, baby.