Everyone has a piece of furniture that is not quite fitting into their whole scheme. It’s either damaged, too old, eclectic, boring or plain ugly.
I had a bookcase just like this. I made it with my husband about 10 years ago from pine and although it’s lasted well, the design was pretty basic.
So, the time finally came to make a bookcase makeover!
The original bookcase was a simple box design with no base and a broken crown moulding.
First, I fixed the crown moulding with my favourite tool, a Ryobi finishing gun, some glue and filled any gaps with wood filler. There are a tonne of moulding options at your local timber yard or hardware store. You can stick to a basic design or go quite extravagant to both the crown and base, if you want.
Next I added a 90mm base by nailing off a boxed 90x 45mm hardwood and added a 90x 20 trim pine over the top which protrudes 20mm from the bookcase. This has now raised the bookshelf off the ground.
I decided on a black and white classic paint scheme using the Valspar range of Calcium white and Night Sky black.
The original bookcase cost about $50 to make. After adding the base, repairs and paint, it cost a further $7.50.
I visited a local furniture manufacturer last week and was shocked to see their bookcases etc were actually mostly chipboard with a very thin pine veneer and sold for $350 for the same size as my solid timber DIY.
What’s the lesson here? You can actually update your furniture cheaper than buying something new and the quality may also be better. Pays to shop around. I sourced the pine from a local timber yard and they cut the pieces to size for free, so all I had to do was glue and nail it together.
The finished result? Speaks for itself really.
