We've Been Busy, but Now I'm Back!

For those of you who don't know, I'm a manager for a major retail company. This means that from November 1st through January 15th I have hardly any life outside work, with the exception of a teeny tiny bit of family time whenever I can squeeze it in. Because of this, my blogging became nonexistent during that time. BUT that doesn't mean we haven't been doing any updates on the house...We've actually done A LOT!

So now that I'm back, I'm going to start with our most recent project...Built-In Bookcases! I got my inspiration from Chris over at Just A Girl. She purchased standard Billy bookcases and  bookcase extenders from IKEA, mounted them all the way across the wall, added some trim and molding, and TA-DA...Built-In Bookcases. It seems simple enough right? Well, I was right and wrong (just a little).

I explained to my hubby that I wanted to build these bookcases, and we made the trip to IKEA We did in fact purchase the Billy bookcases and extenders, but it was a little more than just mounting them to the wall and adding trim. We put everything together first, which was simple, but I suggested that the Fathers come over the next day to help with actually building the Built-Ins (partially because I'm only so much help when moving the 8 ft tall bookcases) and thank goodness they did! With their help, we ended up with a set of very sturdy and wonderful looking Built-Ins.

SO here's a little bit of our process...

It started with our blank canvas of a Living Room. 

Then, we put up the bookcases and added supports both between each bookcase and behind them (which you can't see). 

After we added the supports, we added trim at the top of the extenders (finding the right size was a task in itself) We needed something that was at least 4 inches tall so traditional crown molding didn't work for us because that would've meant that we needed special order crown molding...which wasn't an option. 

After we added the top trim piece, we added the baseboard trim. In my inspirational tutorial, she cut the existing baseboard away from the wall and reattached it. Well, I didn't want to do that so we bought a new piece and coped it to match the trim on either side of the bookcase. Neither the Fathers nor my hubby were good at coping so the fact that I requested this got quite a few "looks". However, they were able to make it work, and it turned out beautifully!

Here it is with the top and bottom trim, and 3 pieces of trim between the bookcases. At this point, we still needed to attach the trim to the outside edges. After the final trim pieces were attached and the whole thing for a few coats of Horseradish paint by Olympic, this is the final result...

Aren't they wonderful?! I'm just thrilled with how they turned out (despite the fact that I still need some more knick-knacks to fill in the white space) and the Living Room is actually starting to look good!

Since I've probably overwhelmed you at this point, I'm going to leave you with a few more photos from the decorating. Until next time...

XO, J&K