151 Built In Beauty

I have some OCD when it comes to starting projects and not finishing them.  It drives me N U T S!  However, we do it all the time.  We are busy busy peeps.  We have three wild and crazy guys all under the age of 10.  Life is blissfully chaotic!  And the project we whipped up last weekend, was a LONG time coming.  Like, from August of last year overdue.

Here is a little back story for your reading entertainment....

One upon a time we had a living room.  It looked like this:

It's so weird to look at this picture.  Nothing about it is the same.  Everything has since changed.  Everything but the gallery wall and wall color....

And when it looked like this, it was intended on being updated.  This picture was taken in July of 2010.  What were we going to change?  Mainly, the standard dated media unit.  It was from a big box store from when we moved in.  It was falling apart, it was small for the space and it was not in line with my style any longer.  So what was the big plan you asked?  Why, I wanted to do a HUGE wall of built in white bookcases and/or a media unit of some sorts!  And it was gonna be grand....

And then we lost our basement in early August.  Yep. A flood wiped out our entire lower level living area.  Such a game life changer.

So, furniture got re-arranged and we downsized and moved things to storage.  And our living room instantly felt different!

The flood caused me to look at all the items and furniture we had in both spaces, and combine them into our new one and only living space.  Only my favorite pieces got to stay.  We had brought up our sectional and leather ottoman, used an Expedit bookcase for a media stand and brought in a more neutral shag rug from the storage room. 

Then, we freshened things up in December to open things up even more, by putting the Expedit into our sons room {all of our component boxes didn't fit in the cubbies so it wasn't working as ideally as we would have liked}, so a previous stand {again from our lower level}, made it's appearance instead.  And I brought back the glass coffee table, because the large leather ottoman gave us zero space.

And that's where I left off.

Because I promised to show you "real life" on the blog, our TV stand actually looks more like this on a daily basis...

IHeart real life.  And even though the TV stand looks mediocre, it doesn't matter.  Because my little man makes any room feel AMAZING!  Ok, sorry, proud mommy alert!

And as much as we are penny pinching to save up for our basement project, {we just found ANOTHER crack in our foundation and MORE water, so no remodeling until we fix the bigger problems first this spring - URG!} we decided to finally finish a project started over half a year ago now.  All we had done up until now was purchase some Ikea billy bookcases, which we planned to line on the back wall.  This was inspired by a post I had seen here on Maillardville Manor.  And then she had to go and do it AGAIN!  Yep, she had put in two bookcases and I hadn't finished my one.  Time to get our booties in bookcase gear!

So that's what we did!

As I mentioned, we had planned on lining the back wall.  However, after seeing Ashli's most recent bookcase project, in which she created a bump out, I knew we had to do the same!

Our bookcase project meant that I had to whip out the wallpaper again.  Because I can't leave well enough alone.  And I didn't want it too be too much white.  Or too simple.  I wanted texture and interest.  And I found this print which matched the wrapping paper I used under our console table, almost to a perfect T!

So the hubs threw together the bookshelves and I sprayed the backing with spray adhesive {tip, if you do this, do the ugly brown side so the good white side can always be used someday if you ever want to switch things up}.

Of course, I was SO excited to finally be doing this project, that I didn't take pictures up til this point.  And we also went to our local Home Depot to snag up MDF for the top and trim for the front, and I didn't take pictures of that either.  But it was a real party, let me tell you!  Just kidding, but in all honesty, the individual who helped us at the good ol' HD, completely cut the top three pieces of wood to an exact perfect cut for us, so we wouldn't have to drag out the table saw when we got home.  HE WAS SO NICE!  It was great!

OK, bookcases assembled.  Check.  Wallpaper attached.  Check.  Time to finish our new masterpiece.

As I mentioned, the wonderful employee at our local Home Depot cut the three top pieces to the perfect sizes.  The hubs just had to screw the bookcases together with 1 1/4" screws, tops and sides.  He also pre-drilled each screw hole to prevent any wood splitting. 

Then, he used his miter box to cut the chair rail molding for the front of the bookcases and attached with an air nailer.

Adding the molding is all we needed to do to be completely 100% sold and in love with the new addition to the space.  It unified all the single units {5 total bookcases} into one, and gave it such a built in feeling!

Next, came puttying and sanding down the lines on the top where the pieces met together, and filling any nail holes in the trim.

We also traced the cap to the wood putty to create a template to create a small notch in three places along the back of the unit, which were cut out with a jig saw.  Because we made the tops deeper than the bookcases themselves, we wanted the entire unit to push tight up against the walls and to hide the cords for all of our lighting and electronics behind it.

I brought one of the shelves into Home Depot with me to have them color match it to a quart of Glidden paint.  It came out to be the PERFECT match and sheen!  They are so great to us there!  {And no, they are not paying me, I just heart when we get great service!}

I used a smooth roller on the top and a edging brush on the trim:

Here we are almost done!

Then came my favorite part!  Putting the room together!  I had all sorts of my favorite decor and organizing books that were just waiting to be placed together in harmony!

And the kid's have loads of books of their own!  It's great having a place for them in our living area, where we do majority of our reading together!

I popped all of their library books into their very own basket as well, since I wanted to ensure they never got misplaced or lost!

And then the rest were just accessories gathered from around the home!  Ready to see the difference a little weekend project can make?

Again, before:

And After:

The new shelving unit absolutely fills the space up perfectly!  Like it was meant to be!  So much more proportional to the space!

The previous sunburst mirror didn't fit anymore.  It was too big with the new shelving height and TV combo.  So I found this smaller version at Target for $25 smackaroos, since I couldn't bare to be sans sunburst!

I want to chain myself to this room!  Since it's been done, I find my self gravitationally being pulled to the couch, just to snuggle up and gaze around.  I have never been so in love with a space in our home.  It is so bright and cheery and colorful and happy.  It feels like home.  Like a great place to raise our boys and play games and read stories and watch movies and cartoons and take long afternoon naps!

So that's the story of our living room!  Well, not actually not the whole story - it did once look like this....

Until Bryan's uncle told me it looked like we had smoke damage.  Then, it was this for a minute:

Until I felt like a sunshine threw up on my walls.  That's when Shrek came to visit and the rest is history!

So what do you think?  Who else has been putting off a project that just needs to be done already?  Big or small?  What about seeing something somewhere that got you off your project finishing booty and getting things done?!  Who else has embarrassing photos of a space that make you laugh and shake your head and wonder what you were thinking?  I want to hide mine just like I hid those pictures of me in 4th grade with poofy poodle top hair and rolled jeans....

Oh my greatness!  Check out how we took these super sweet built-ins a step further with new decorative doors!