Sprucing Up My Bookcase

I'm a little ashamed to admit that it has taken me years to accomplish this project.  The sad part is that it only took about 15 minutes after it was all said and done!  Allow me to explain...

Here's a photo showcasing an area of our living room that I liked to ignore.  We have this little dinky bookcase that is crammed full of stuff and is falling apart.  

You see, ever since we moved into our house, Adam and I have talked about wanting to add more shelving in our living room.  The bookcase we have doesn't come close to containing all the books we have and it is falling apart.  We have discussed several options over the years but never seemed to come up with a solution.  We tossed around the idea of adding built-ins on either side of the fireplace, but decided they would make that wall too overwhelming.  So, we settled on making our own custom bookcase that would fit between the fireplace and the wall.  However, this project has taken a backseat to some of the other projects we've worked on over the years.

In the meantime, I've haven't paid much attention to the bookcase.  I just keep stuffing books, photo albums and knick-knacks on those teeny shelves.  I even started stacking books next to the bookcase!  

I looked over there the other day and thought to myself, "This is ridiculous!  There's no reason for that wall of our living room to look so janky."  So I decided to do something about it, even if we're not quite ready to start building the new bookcase.  

I realized that I don't need to keep every single book we own on that bookcase.  I can store some books in the basement until we build a bookshelf that can house all of our books.  With Young House Love's recent built-in bookshelves serving as inspiration, I sorted our books into colors.  From there, I put like-colored books next to each other and added in a few decorative items.   

I even threw in a few holiday items like the blue snowman and a snow globe.  It's safe to say it looks a million times better! 

 

Even though the bookshelf is still too small for the space and it's still a little rickety, it looks far more pleasing to the eye and is way more organized.  And I'm not ashamed to show you what's lurking below our vacation gallery wall now.  By doing this project, I realized I should accept and love what I have at the moment, even if it's not my ideal situation.  I can apply this lesson to my life, as well.  Hooray for decorating (and life) epiphanies!