Bookcase Closet DIY

Pinterest is an amazing and scary place. It has the ability to inspire you and make you feel like the most inadequate person all at the same time. I love it because I have found things I never would have even considered or known about before. Yet I have boards upon boards full of things that I have not looked twice at, or even considered to actually do. Like this bookcase closet, I pinned it ages ago, thought, "how clever is that?", and never looked at it again. And then I got pregnant...

You think Pinterest is scary, just wait till you experience the weird pregnant desire to accomplish things, clean and organize! One of the many things on my To Do list (which isn't actually a list more like a mental note, which is also probably why i keep forgetting things i want/need to do, maybe i should write it down..) was to make the little nugget a place for his clothes. Seeing as we live in a wonderful little one bedroom place he is going to be sharing our spacious bedroom with us. The only downside is that my crap takes up ALL of the closet space and we don't have much when it comes to extra accessible storage space. Then somehow in all my pregnant brain glory I remembered the said bookcase closet pin and was determined it would be made for our sea monster. Then I put it off for weeks.. hey, I can't be perfect! I finally got around to doing it this week, and couldn't be more thrilled that I did! Plus I finally got to experiment with chalk paint, two pinterest birds with one stone!

This is what I started with, something we picked up off craigslist when we first moved into our place for like $25 bucks. Not bad, but I need it to be white and preferably no longer have that weird rattan woven thing in the back. 

And this is what I got after one coat of homemade chalk paint. At which point I also ran out of my white latex paint and had to put the project on hold, LAME! Off to find more paint...

Here it is in all its two coat glory (still a wee bit wet hence the weird shine we got going on). Once it was dry I used SC Johnson paste wax and buffed the crap out of this bad boy. I was kind of dreading this part, but really it wasn't so bad. I would definitely rather buff with wax then take the time to sand before painting, but to each his own, right? Around this time I evacuated the premises to let the wax soak in and I headed off to Ace Hardware to find a suitable clothing rod. Since I am only hanging baby clothes I figured I could get away with just using a tension rod and nothing that actually had to screw into the sides of the bookcase. Luckily I scored a sweet little white rod and ended up with this...

Now I just need to move it into its actual spot in the bedroom *ahem, Joey* get some cute baskets for it, some baby hangers and add the cute decorative touches. Sooooo I still have a lot to do to it, but its painted and put back together! I will admit, I tend to just admire it every few minutes, I'm a proud mama!! Mostly I am just glad it is done, one more thing checked off that never ending mental to do list.

love,
the williams