After 20 years of moving from place to place with the Army, my husband is retiring. It is wonderful news and a big new chapter for our family, but it also means we finally have to sort through all the furniture, antiques, hand-me-downs, and thrifted pieces we have collected throughout our marriage.
Our home is filled with a little bit of everything: 1950s Louis XV-style furniture from France, Old Americana antiques, childhood furniture that is old but not exactly valuable, and plenty of other pieces that somehow followed us from one duty station to the next. Going through it all has been harder than I expected. Every item has a memory attached to it, but we cannot keep everything. Some pieces deserve a permanent place in our home, and others are ready to be donated, passed on, or let go.
This bookshelf is one of the furniture pieces I am truly proud of. The center base is an old dresser that was either handed down to us or purchased at an auction sometime in the 1990s. I honestly cannot remember which, but I do remember that it was once painted pink. Over the years, it has been transformed more than once, and it has become one of those pieces that feels too personal to give away.
The shelves on each side started as natural wood kits I bought from Lowes while my husband was away in Korea. That project was one of the first times I ventured into his tools and tested just how handy, and possibly dangerous, I could be on my own. As it turned out, I was more capable than I expected. That first DIY furniture project gave me confidence, and now I am completely addicted to refinishing and repurposing furniture.
I originally painted the entire piece a soft cream, sanded the edges, and rubbed everything down with a pecan-colored stain to give it a worn, aged finish. It stayed that way for nearly a decade. After our most recent move, I was happy to say this bookshelf made the cut and earned a place in our office. Still, the cream color felt a little too plain for the new room, and I was ready to give it a brighter, more updated look.
At first, I had been thinking about using a Tiffany Blue paint color in a guest bedroom. Then I found this rug at Cost Plus World Market, and the whole plan changed. The rug had just the right pop of blue, and I immediately knew that same color would be perfect for dressing up my favorite bookshelf and tying the office together.
To get the color right, I brought an old Tiffany box to Home Depot. I am not entirely sure why I saved the box for so many years. My sister-in-law had given her bridesmaids Tiffany earrings, and that box was the only Tiffany item I owned, so I suppose I felt the need to keep it. Moving has a funny way of uncovering things you forgot you had. The paint expert scanned the box and created this formula: Colorant-0Z-384th, AXL-0-85, DL-0-108, EL-0-92. The match was spot on. For this DIY bookshelf makeover, I chose a high-gloss acrylic paint to give the piece a clean, polished finish.
I started by painting the outer edges of the shelves with the Tiffany Blue paint. Adding color to only part of the piece helped keep the bookshelf from feeling too bold while still giving it the fresh accent I wanted.
I was nervous the entire time because I was painting on our new hardwood floors, and I am a total klutz. One wrong move with the brush or paint can could have been a disaster. Luckily, everything went smoothly, and it was probably a good thing my husband was not home to watch me take that risk.
The drawers were the part I could not decide on. I went back and forth trying to choose whether to leave them cream or paint them blue to match the shelves. To help myself visualize the finished look, I created a quick mock-up in Photoshop and asked my Facebook fans for their opinions. Their answers were just as mixed as mine, which made the decision even harder.
Then I went to Anthropologie and found drawer knobs in almost the exact same shade of blue. It felt like a small decorating jackpot. The knobs gave me the perfect way to bring the blue down into the dresser area without painting the drawer fronts.
In the end, I kept the drawers cream and used the blue knobs as accents. I have not decided what I want to do about the pulls yet, but the old ones work for now. Sometimes a furniture makeover does not have to be finished all at once. I would rather wait and find the right hardware than rush into something that does not fit the style of the piece.
For the final step, I sanded the shelves with 100-grit sandpaper. I focused on the edges and rubbed just enough to let the older cream paint show through. In a few spots, even a little of the original pink peeked out, which added more character and history to the bookshelf. To soften the bright blue and warm up the overall look, I rubbed the painted areas with a natural-colored stain. Looking back, I probably could have chosen a stain one shade darker because the natural stain is very subtle. Still, I did not want to cover the blue too much, and I like that the finished piece still feels bright and cheerful.
The Tiffany Blue bookshelf turned out beautifully, especially next to the new rug. It has the right mix of vintage charm, personal history, and fresh color for our office. Now that the furniture makeover is done, it is finally time to give my collection of cookbooks and old cooking magazines a permanent home.