Under $25 Makeover: Bookcase Project

So I'm getting started on the Under $25 Makeover a day late and a dollar short! ;) Nevertheless, I promised a project for each week, and here's the first one. This week I am redoing my guest bedroom/office. In that room, I have one of those plain boring compressed wood bookcases we all had in college. It's laminate of course, so painting can be a pain. To save myself some heartache and time, I decided to just cover the back of the bookcase with something. I've seen this done several places before, the most recent being the Nate Berkus show.

So without further ado, here's the before:

I wanted to do something bright, but use supplies I already had on hand. I thought about using paper, but I didn't have enough of the same paper to do the whole shelf, so I decided to use fabric. I dug through my fabric stash and came across some great bright pink burlap I had picked up last year. It was perfect. I wanted to attach it to the back in such a way that I could remove it if I wanted to. That way if I got tired of the pink, I could change it up with a different fabric. I used 3M wall strips at the top corners and sticky backed Velcro dots. Here's what that looks like:


Once I had the top secured, I put the top shelf back in and the fabric was further secured.

I continued to use the Velcro dots at the top of each new shelf until I got to the third one. Then I hit a snag when I realized that shelf didn't come out as it was nailed in. I had to decide whether to leave the extra fabric and hide the bottom shelves or cut the fabric and not put any fabric behind the bottom two shelves. Before the decision:

In the end, I decided to cut the burlap and used three Velcro dots to secure it to the bottom of the third shelf.

Here's the finished project:

I did some rearranging, decided to get rid of some books, and filled the bottom shelf with two baskets that can hide junk. I also did a nice arrangement for the top of the bookcase using stuff I had around the house and some hydrangeas from my garden.


My hydrangeas are in full bloom, so look to see those in about every room in my house during this makeover! Well, that's my simple project for this week. All in all, the cost was free since I used stuff I already had in my stash. But even if you had to purchase supplies, the whole project would cost between $5-$10 depending on the fabric or paper used. I think this pink does a nice job of brightening up an otherwise dark corner. Look for the complete room makeover tomorrow. And don't forget, on Friday you can add your inexpensive project to the linky party!

Happy Crafting!