shabby chic project 1 - bookshelf

Last semester I studied abroad in Costa Rica. Whily studying abroad, I arranged a sub-lease for an apartment this spring since I would only need a place January-May (until graduation in May). During Christmas break, after I returned from the land of pura vida, I went to meet the girl from whom I was subleasing and see the apartment so that I would know what I needed. Luckily I have gotten through college without needing the first piece of furniture, living in a freshman all-girl dorm, an on-campus furnished apartment my sophomore year, and on off-campus furnished apartment my junior year. So this apartment, my LAST semester of college (at least as an undergrad!), was the first time I would need furniture for my room. I decided immediately that I wanted to go with a 'shabby chic' theme for the room.

Luckily we have an antique iron bed at home given to us by a lady in our church, so that was where I started. It was a weird shade of brown, so my dad primed and painted it. That was technically project number 1. I wanted it to be an off-white color, but for some reason the paint that my dad used turned out to be rather white. It's fine for now, but I will definitely be painting it for future use. We then came across an off-white chest and night stand at a relative's furniture store and got a good deal on those pieces, so the shabby chic (dream) room was slowly coming together.

The next thing(s) I knew that I needed/wanted were a desk and a bookshelf. I REALLY wanted an antique writing desk, and am still looking for one of those! I found another desk that I will blog about as project 2 to show what we found and how we chic'ed it up! So I went on a search to every antique/thrift store within a 20 minute radius in search of these two pieces. I knew that I wanted 'fixer' pieces that I could re-do and add my own personal touches to.

Enter...damaged bookshelf.

One of the last places that I looked was the local Haven of Rest Thrift Store. I saw this bookshelf and knew IMMEDIATELY that it was what I wanted. I wanted something small with three shelves with room for my small flat-screen TV to sit on top. And look at what I found! It is the perfect size - one shelf for DVDs, one shelf for books for pleasure-reading, and another shelf for textbooks. I paid $6 for this bookshelf, between 3-4 feet tall.

The paint was chipped in many places, and the bottom of all the shelves was unfinished.

This is the shelf before my dad's magical touch!

This was on the back of the bookshelf, and the lady who sold it to me said I could easily replace it. It was pretty bad, so dad just ripped it off and put a new piece of plywood on the back.

Dad sanded all the edges and for a fun little touch put a small piece of crown molding around the top of the shelf. He then added a coat of paint to it which he found at Lowe's nearby for probably $8-10 to match the bedding that I had picked out for the room.

And .... TA-DA!!!

Here is the bookshelf, painted, in my room!

My dad helped me out a good bit, but only because I didn't have time. This is a project that anyone with limited skill like me could easily do!

Total cost = <$20