Office Bookshelf Makeover

We moved into our house about a year and a half ago, and since then my office has been a “catch all” for our many many projects. It has driven me nuts, but it wasn’t until I was putting away all the Christmas decorations that I decided I should probably add my office to my “TO DO” list this year. After all I spend hours and hours in there each day writing and trying to find inspiration for things to talk about on my blog. A messy and ugly room is hard to find inspiration in, trust me.

So because January is all about organization I decided I’d start with making over and organizing the built-in bookshelves in my office. You probably saw my sneak peek last week when I talked about organize the shelves, but today I’m going to show you the full bookshelf makeover!

Let’s start at the beginning. This is pretty much what it’s looked like for a year and a half. The only thing that ever changes is the crap stuff sitting on the front of the bookshelf, it fluctuates depending on what project we’re working on.

It’s totally shameful showing you this picture but now you see why it was driving me crazy!!! The first thing I did was take EVERYTHING off the shelves. The cabinets and drawers are organized so I left those alone but I completely cleared the top half and scrubbed it clean.

Then I went to Pinterest in search of inspiration. By no means am I an expert at making over bookshelves. It’s just not the way my brain works so I went looking for a picture that would speak to me. When I found this picture I fell in love.

I had just assumed I’d paint the bookshelves white but when I found this picture the black frame, with the lighter interior, spoke to me and I knew this was just the inspiration I needed! The best part was that I had everything I needed, to get this look, on hand. I used the black stain from Old Village Paints, that I redid our bathroom cabinets in, for the frame, left over white paint from Malea’s loft bed for the white shelves, and the Pillow Mint from Malea’s current bedroom makeover for the back of the shelves.

If you follow me on Instagram you saw lots of project pictures from the other weekend starting with this one. I seriously LOVE this stain (this is not a sponsored post), it’s thick, it’s beautiful and it has held up impeccably in our bathroom, no scratches and it’s been 9 months!

I started with the upper frame and worked my way down to the cabinets in the base. It went pretty quickly and I only had to do 2 coats because the quality of the stain is so great. Here’s another picture from Instagram.

While the stain was drying my husband and I painted the shelves Heirloom White. I thought about doing them black too but I liked the white shelves in the inspiration picture, and I thought black shelves might make it look too boxy.

After re-installing the shelves, I did all my touch-ups, like fixing that huge blob of black stain on the back of the left bookshelf. 🙂 I am so incredibly happy with the way it turned out! I even moved my desk to face the bookshelves because I love looking at them now.

Okay, now I’m going to stop talking and let you enjoy all the “after” pictures.

I’m so please with the way it turned out! I love how sleek the black looks, such an improvement from the orangy oak. Next on the list is adding knobs and pulls to the built-in drawers and doors, painting the office walls and adding baseboards to the room.

I can’t wait to see what it all looks like when it’s done! What do you think of the black bookshelves? Would you ever consider staining or painting your bookshelves black?

 

Product list-

• Wire baskets with chalkboard label
• Bookshelf accessories
• Old Village Paints, gel stain
• White paint – Heirloom Lace by Olympic
• “Sea foam-colored” paint – Pillow Mint by Valspar
• Magazine boxes