New Bookcase!

Ever since we moved into our house in early March, we've slowly been whittling away at our long project list. The most recent one completed was a bookcase for Grace's room. I've some big dreams of turning Grace into a lover of books, and so I'm a little bit obsessed with buying them for her. Plus, reading the same books to her over and over gets a little bit old, so I'm always on the lookout for new material to switch up our bedtime routine.

Anyway, we needed a place to keep all these books, and the hutch piece for a desk that we found in the basement that we stuck in her room temporarily just wasn't cutting it. Not even with suitcases stacked in front of it to keep her from pulling it over on herself when she was trying to stand. So I was doing a little shopping around, and fell in love with this baby:

via pottery barn kids

I was not, however, in love with the $300 price tag. Luckily, I remembered discovering this site, where you can find plans for knock-offs of furniture from Pottery Barn and the like. Oh yeah, and the plans are free. How awesome is that? And to my joy, I found the plans for the very bookcase I'd been coveting. I sent the links to my mom, who agreed to share her time and talents to build it.

In the end, we decided to deviate from the plans a bit to add another shelf. We figured that while we were at it, we may as well add a bit of extra storage, which of course makes room for even more books! We also added a couple of dividers between the shelves and some trim around the top to class it up a bit. It was built, primed, and painted last weekend, but I had to wait until today to actually start using it since the paint needed time to cure. (No thanks to you, humidity!) One of the best parts of the project was that the materials for the bookcase came in at around $50, while we snagged the baskets from Lowe's (who would have thought? Not me!) at about $4 apiece. Much easier on our bank account than the Pottery Barn version!

the finished product!

*please excuse my amateur photography =)

I promise her room doesn't feel as stark as these photos make it seem. We're still adding some finishing touches to warm it up and make it a little girl's room. Also, our carpet is not pink, even though the lighting makes it look that way. Grace's room has come a long way since we first moved, and it feels so good to cross another big project off the list!  Here's where we're at with things so far:
- new carpet
- fresh paint
- hang shelves
- finish closet floor
- hang closet doors
- build bookcase
- hem and hang curtains
- design animal themed art for walls
- cover rocking chair cushions
- hang letters of her name
- hang animal canvases
- buy baskets for organizing


Okay, so maybe we don't have quite as much of the list done as I thought. Oh well. We're just enjoying the progress!