After the boyfriend and I moved and decorated our new apartment, there was one lonely little wall crying for help. Through December, the Christmas tree helped in keeping the space company, but shortly after taking it down, it needed a new friend. I bought this amazing print at Kirkland's on sale for 50 bucks to hang on the wall, but it needed a furniture piece to pull it altogether.
For me, the best part about shopping is finding the best deals. I feel more proud when I can walk out of a store and know I wasn't a suckered for purchasing a full priced marked-up item. Since I come from wholesale land (aka my work), I know a little something about a thing called mark-up. It's the death of me. With that said, I decided instead of going to Ikea or TJ Maxx (another fav store of mine) and spending $100 on a new furniture piece, I would instead go to the Goodwill and rescue a little piece of furniture.
Sure enough, I found a little bookshelf for $13! After having the manager page a homeboy to come help me squeeze the shelf into my lil' coop, losing my keys, and thanking the poor dude for finding them in the trunk, I drove off to the Home Depot to buy sand paper, primer, and paint.
I would have posted more pictures of the steps I took to re-salvage the bookshelf, but since I decided to open a blog after the fact, I can only post what I have.
I first sanded down the wood parts of the bookshelf with rough sand paper, and scuffed the other laminate parts, and applied three moderate coats of white primer. After a day of drying I painted the entire piece with a white semi-gloss paint by Rustoleum. I found this classy wrapping paper on clearance at Target for $1.95 and wallpapered the back of the shelf to make the pattern pop.
Here are the before and after pics.
