makeover monday: kitchen bookcase

Hola! How was everyone's weekend? Good. Great. Wonderful. How fun!

I spent most of mine refinishing a bookcase my grandpa made for my mom but I ended up stealing. MINE. While my grandpa may give me the silent treatment after he finds out I painted wood, I'm ecstatic with the way it turned out. To the point where I almost pet it. Swear.

The bookcase lives in the kitchen and we use it to store things like casserole dishes, cookbooks, a microwave and our weekly produce.

Originally a light golden stain, I decided to sand off the finish and start spraying a white primer on it before we even moved into this house. The thought was to paint the entire bookcase a bright white to lighten up the space and keep everything looking crisp and clean.

...Until I realized that everything in the kitchen was a bone white. Including this adorable shelf I was planning to put the bookcase underneath. Smart, Kate. 

So I Jim dug through the garage and found two cans of the same paint used for all the kitchen cabinetry. Score!

Then it hit me. Why not paint the back of the bookcase a different color? It would make the content pop a little more and give the kitchen some much needed color. I had purchased this photo in San Francisco a few weeks prior in hopes to someday find a place for it in the kitchen. And even though it doesn't have a place in there just yet, I used it to pick the perfect deep blue hue. 

The entire project ended up costing me around $15. Already having majority of the paint, I purchased a couple of testers, a new brush and some rollers. Done. Now let's get started. 

First things first: three coats of bone white paint, letting it dry overnight.

Next came the blue paint. Nervous paint would peel off if I used tape, I actually free handed the border with a small angled paintbrush. I applied two coats and touched up wherever I saw any sort of inconsistency. 

Finally, I grabbed the tiniest roller known to man (thanks for the tip, Sharon!) and rolled on two coats of blue paint in between the border. 

Tip: Always line your paint trays with saran wrap. It alleviates tons of clean up time and allows for quick paint color changes. 

And that was it! I actually didn't apply any finish although as I write this, now I'm kind of thinking I really should (damnit!). I'll likely use Minwax's Polycrylic, applying only to the bone white part. 

I really like the little hint of color it provides and think the content stands out exactly the way I was hoping for it to. I'm thinking about replacing the vegetable bowls with wire baskets but that's just a small tweak I can worry about later. Cute, right? Right.