New year, new bookcases

Merry Chrismukah, Happy New Year and all that jazz.

When L and I moved in together we bought one of those cheap-o laminate faux wood bookcases from Kmart. Over the years, we acquired 3 in total. They serve their purpose in that they hold our books, but dear god they are ugly as sin.

Cruising around the internet one day I decided to see if there were some DIY tips I could use to gussy them up a bit. I'd love to just buy some new bookcases from ikea but I'm didn't want to spend the $$, and I know we'll be moving again soon(ish) and I didn't want to invest in something that might look great in our current home but awful in a future home. Then I came across this: How To Paint Laminate Furniture.

Yes! clearly the solution to my bookcase woes. I'll just paint them. Bear in mind, I haven't painted anything... um... ever. 9 years ago L and I sanded and re-finished some old dressers, but it had been a while. But come on, how hard could it be? Our house is a re-done mid-century modern and I realized that if I painted them white, they would look like faux built-ins. The accent color in our guest room/office is a springy, grassy green. I decided to paint the main part of the bookshelves white and the "top" part of eash shelf green, for a splash of color.

As with all DIY projects this took way more time and way  more money than I expected. All in all, it probably cost about $120 for all the necessary stuff to sand, prime and paint the three bookcases. Still less than buying nice new ones, and I got to customize them with color the way I wanted, but still not exactly a cheap project.

I followed lindsey's instructions and without further ado:

Before:

And After:

I'm really happy with the overall result, although there are some things I might do differently next time.

1) Veneer really doesn't sand, prime, or paint well. It took 3 coats of paint and the paint just peels right off. Getting the shelves in was a real struggle and I'm most definitely using strategically placed books to cover some scratches in the paint. They'll look good here, but I'm not sure how well they'll make the next move.

2)Prime much better.

3) Don't sign myself up to do three of something. I took a lot of careful time with the first one and it came out by far the best. By the end, I just wanted to be done with the damn things and wasn't as careful.

4) wait until I have a garage or indoor area to paint, some of the paint has dust/grass in it. oops.

But, I'm really glad I took on this home improvement task and despite some beginner's errors, I think the painting came out well and make the room look a whole lot nicer.

** those are by no means all of our books.. those are 2 cases of the "important" ones (books i'm using for my dissertation or may need for quick references to put together a class syllabus), and some of our recreational literature. I have at least 8 more boxes of books stored in a friend's garage. Yay books!