New Bookcases For the Living Room

When I started the conversion to cottage style decor in 2008, I was on  a painting frenzy to change all my dark furniture to white.  One of the pieces I painted was an old 3 piece wall unit we had purchased many, MANY years before, back in the late 70’s!

Although the wall unit was way out-dated, it did afford me lots of storage and display space but after moving to the house in Hooterville, it didn’t take me long to realize that wall unit just wasn’t going to work well in this new house.  In addition, the 3 pieces really needed a fresh coat of paint.  It was a HUGE  job to paint this beast the first time around so I was not up for the challenge of painting it  again now, especially when I wasn’t happy with it in this house and I have so many other projects on my “To Do” list.

I decided it was (past) time to let the wall unit go so recently my hubby and I hauled all three pieces up to the main road and left them there, hoping a passing motorist or neighbor would come along and adopt them.  Before we had even gotten out of sight, someone was stopping to check them out!

With no wall unit anymore, I needed someplace to display my late grandmother’s milk glass pieces, as well as some of the trinkets and treasures I kept when I purged stuff  before our move to the house in Hooterville so I started looking for something that would work in the new living room.

I found this and based on all the positive reviews, I decided to order two  of the 36 inch size in white.   My hubby was able to get them assembled this past weekend.

Well….I suppose for the price, they aren’t bad but there were a few things I didn’t like about them.

The back piece was folded in half for shipping, which is typical for this kind of furniture, but when it was opened up and attached to the bookcase, there was a large and very noticeable vertical gap.

I ended up filling the gap with white caulk but it still shows more than I would like.  Eventually, I may end up covering the backs with bead board wallpaper.

There were also some gaps where pieces were joined.

I filled them with white caulk too and it looks better.  More seamless.

Once I got the bookcases caulked and all my nick-nacks arranged, I was pleased with the way they look flanking my sofa. 

That picture (temporarily) propped on the back of  the sofa was in the living room in  my previous home and the green mat looked really nice on my light sage green walls there.  Obviously though,  it’s not working with the pale gray I painted the walls here.   I plan to keep the big, chunky white frame (it cost me an arm and a leg!) but I am debating whether to keep the print and have just the green mat replaced, or have  both  the  mat and print replaced.  I haven’t decided yet.

And I’m still working on the area directly across from the sofa.    There’s lots left to do on that side of the room!