One day, I’d love to go to a beautiful furniture store like West Elm, Montauk Sofa, or Crate and Barrel, hand them an entire paycheck, and say “One bookcase, please”. Until then, I’ll keep taking old pieces of furniture and doing my best to transform them into something decent. This Ikea Billy bookcase was in our storage room long enough for the colour to fade in the sun to an unfortunate shade of off-white. We nicknamed it “Pit Stain”, since it looks like that white shirt you give up on for the same reasons. But with just a bit of work, it looks like new! So long, Pit Stain.
Getting rid of the holes for the adjustable shelves made it look a little higher end right away. I used a spackle tool and Polyfilla to cover them up. It dried pretty fast, then I wiped any excess off with a damp cloth till the surface was smooth.
I used basic latex eggshell paint by Benjamin Moore that I had leftover from a previous project, nothing fancy. I removed all the shelves and did 2 coats of white paint with a roller. I didn’t remove the back because it didn’t look sturdy enough to survive any pulling, so I just taped the inner edges and painted 2 coats of turquoise with a brush.  It seems to be holding up! I’d mention the paint colour, but I actually mixed 2 leftover colours had lying around (Pelican Grey and Mermaid Green).
 P.S: I have more books, I just kept it empty for show here.
 Have a lovely long weekend, all my Canadian friends!