Black and white bookshelf - before and "not quite" after

Former country pine bookshelf in situ

We brought the newly painted bookshelf upstairs and put it in its new home in the sunroom.

It was a bit wobbly at first, because there is nothing square in this old place. With three boys running around, we thought it best to secure the bookshelf to the wall. Jason did that this morning with his trusty hammer and nails.

Base trim and covering strip added

He put a new base board on the side of the bookcase and a covering strip to hide the gap between it and the wall. It gives a nicer finish. Those new additions will have to be painted as they are only undercoated, hence the "not quite after" from the blog title.

To refresh your memory we tried to "de-countrify" the bookshelf so that it was plainer and would fit in better with our existing furniture. I removed the colonial style moulding from the top and the bottom and removed the country-style doors from this piece. Jason added the plain timber trim.

Firstly, I sanded and undercoated the entire piece. I then gave it about three coats of acrylic paint and used painter's tape to cut in the black and white to get a sharp edge. If you're interested, you can read the progress reports here and here.

When we put the actual shelves back into the bookcase, it scuffed the black interior paint work because it was a very tight fit - that too will have to be touched up. You live, you learn.

Anyhow, I've already loaded the bookshelf with our books. The bottom three shelves will be used for the boys' books, while the top two shelves will be mostly for reference, language books and decorative objects.

I couldn't style a bookshelf to save myself. I kind of believe bookshelves should be for books if you have them, but anyway I tried...heh, heh, heh. I really did try!

In all honesty, I'm pleased with the final results, despite having to touch up the paint work here and there. This job I will delegate to Jason because he is more careful with that sort of thing.

Thanks again to everyone who gave me advice about what to do with this piece of furniture and those who were very encouraging. I now have a very useable and easy-on-the-eye bookshelf.

The bookshelf fits snugly into this corner of the sunroom. We removed our old faux wood bookshelves that used to sit behind the door.

Before shot of the country pine bookshelf