Bookshelf re-do

My boys needed a bookshelf to free up some space on their toy shelves. Now despite the fact that my hubs and I are both big readers and my boys love books there is only one bookshelf in our house. It is a cheapo inexpensive bonus item that came with a cheapo inexpensive computer desk from Walmart. I wanted all the boys furniture in their “new room” to match / blend so again PAINT !!!!  

ALL the paint in this project is left over from other projects and the shelf we’ve had for 5 years so total cost here $0. Gotta love FREE !!!

I have no before pics of the shelf.  I forgot to take them in my excitement to get going.  But here’s one of the side of the computer desk (still cheap and ugly… oh well that’s a project for another day)  so you can get the idea of what i was working with.

 

                                            

Yes that’s all you get to see. The rest is HORRIBLY messy and un-organized. It doesn’t even qualify as an organized mess. You can see it seeping into the picture in the upper right corner. paper work, envelopes, bills etc.  LOL !  But you get the ugly silver-grey metal tubing and ugly black MDF shelving and desk top. Same thing on the bookshelf.

I took it completely apart and started with the ends. I roughed them a bit with fine grit sand paper and primed with Krylon white spray primer.

                                                    

Then 2 coats of Krylon Gloss White paint later they were done

                              

Next I LIGHTLY sanded with a medium grit sand paper all the MDF shelves. They were under a leak and had very slight bubbling on them from water damage. After that I primed them as well with the Kilz primer i bought for my kitchen cabinets. When it was time for paint I gave each shelf a different color like the bed rails.

                                       

LtR : Behr Sparkling Apple, Krylon True Blue, Dutchboy Bouncing ball.

Yes the blue shelf is sprayed the others are not :o) And once again just like the bed that orange took MULTIPLE coats. The others only took 2.

I also primed and painted all the brackets to coordinate.

                                      

I let all of this dry and cure over several days. Since it’s going in a kids BOYS room I didn’t want to end up with dings and scuffs in the paint from turning them loose on it to soon. Boys are very hard on furniture. Mine especially. When it was finally all dry and ready to go I put it all together…

And there we have it! The boys get a cool new shelf that blends with their other furniture and matches their room colors ! I covered up  “made adorable” a complete eyesore. And I think it looks much better in a kids room in bright colors than in the industrial office supply look. I HATE that look. I have HATED this shelf since we got it. (still hate the matching desk. again, project for another day )  Not a bad little shelf sporting it’s new look though.

Peace

Steph