I bought a really ugly, but very useful bookshelf from Salvation Army for $10.06. You think I'm joking about the really ugly part? I'll let you see the picture, and then you can quickly realize how understated my statement actually was.
Yeah...told you. It looks like the type of shelf that somebody made to hold tools in a dirty garage. It even had wheels on the bottom, which sounds cool, but it made our rug constantly bunch up. Yuck. So those had to go.
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| Drab, brown, tan, dirty, yellow-y, ugly. Not cool. |
However, the bookshelf fits perfectly in the corner or our apartment and holds my sewing machine and some other crafting supplies. So I did what any normal person would do and scoured pinterest for painting ideas. I loved both of these bookshelves.
I had white paint already that I had used on this chair, so I went to Home Depot in search of either grey or black paint for the inside of the shelf. In the "oops" basket, I found a gallon or dark grey paint for seven dollars. Crazy! If I could have picked any color for the shelf it would have been the exact color that was in the clearance basket. I started out by unscrewing the shelves and sanding it down. Harper helped.
Then I painted the shelves grey, let them dry, and painted the other side. It was raining the day I painted, so I did the entire thing in my kitchen, which is impressive. And it didn't even take me that long to scrape the paint mistakes off of the tile...
After that, I leaned the shelf over and painted the entire inside grey also.
And then put the shelves back in. Next, I used a small roller and painted the top, sides, and edges a bright glossy white. I did several coats to make sure the hideous brown was fully covered. I also rearranged the shelf order when I put it back together to get maximum use out of the space.
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| The paint colors, if you're interested :) |
Okay, here's the before and after one more time:
Note: I also used this grey paint to refinish a nightstand in this post.