Billy Bookcase Built-Ins
Phew! This project required a little more time and planning than what I thought it would take. Plus I needed some extra glasses of mimosas as well along the way from start to finish. But it was all worth it at the end of the day because I love the new look of our living room.
The BEFORE, my friends! I had this ugly yellow wall in my family room and I was dreaming about a nice bookshelf for ages! Yup!
So here is how we started this project: We bought an ol' BILLY BOOKCASE from IKEA. Ya know the simple white one. We purchased 2 of these with an extra extension that made the shelving unit taller.
There is a long tutorial on the blog but this is how we started. We added four pieces of wood panels on the walls ( both sides of the fireplace) as the long board that goes on the side was 12 wide, and the Billy bookcase was 11 so we needed to make up that 12
The hub cut the baseboard out from the back wall so the Billy Bookcase could be pushed up against the wall.
.....And then fast forward we got the beautiful shelves built around and in. Here below is the before and after! OMG! WHAT A CHANGE!
Find step by step full tutorial on the blog!! And here you get to see a peek of how I styled my beautiful shelves!
These billy bookcase built-ins totally changed the room.
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Like the way you finished off sides with moulding.
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Fabulous transformation! LOVE the white. Great job. Thanks for sharing.
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When did you change the placements of the shelves, or is that another bookcase ?
Beautiful job, the fireplace looks fabulous as well ! I am undertaking a similar project after xmas, Can you share what the most challenging part was? I am planning on using the Pax system instead of the Billy, so I can omit the ceiling extender...any advise will be helpful! Thanks !
I think you did a wonderful job; to me it is always fabulous to have bookcases on the sides of the FP or a desk/bookcase combo whatever works. Maybe I didn't see it properly but did you not go to the ceiling with them? While I would love to do something similar, I have 11 ft. ceilings next to the FP so it would look strange to make the cases shorter. But I do love the idea.