Thursday, January 12, 2012

The bookcase!

Somewhere back in time, about 5 years ago we went to a garage sale and hubby bought a gun cabinet and I bought the worlds ugliest lamp shade. That cabinet has been sitting in the basement ever since. a) it's illegal to have a glass fronted gun storage, b) the glass in the door was so heavy every time you tried to open it the cabinet tried to fall over on top of you and c) it was falling apart.

I was hesitant to throw it out cause it was made from all sorts of things - old apple box ends, plywood and was definitely home made, something close to my heart. So the other day I decided to make something of it....a bookcase. One can never have enough book cases!
My first idea was to use only wood and paint that I had sitting around in my work room. So I started painting and cutting shelf brackets.
Once I got to the main cabinet, the though occurred to me that it would look nice if there was some sort of "romantic" wallpaper covering the back instead of just white paint. Also please note that I could not get the gun rack out of the darn thing. It was glued, screwed and nailed into place, so I thought I'd work around it - maybe make it a shelf.

I learned something new though, no one handles wall paper anymore! It is out of vogue, I could order some which would take about a week to come in if I wanted...I didn't want. So, I decided to get some pretty cloth and use that to cover the inside.
What a job that was!! Because of the stooooopid gun rack, it was a fight to get the material covering the walls smoothly.
After much swearing, putting in and taking out again, adding supports, taking out supports, more swearing...I finally got it as good as it was going to be.
I framed the inside of the door with gold braid, which I put in with a hot glue gun. Let me tell you what I think of hot glue guns......well, maybe not, this is a family blog!! I will say they are hot, the glue is hot, hot gluing one's fingers is not a pleasant thing......
It is finally done and in place in the spare room. I think it does look rather romantic so I've put some of my favorite romance novels in it.
Next project....... I really must do something with the worlds ugliest lamp shade....LOL

5 comments:

  1. What a beautiful job! You've taken an ugly duckling and turned it into a swan. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very nice. I wish I could do something like that. Looking forward to seeing what you do with the lamp shade.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a transformation! So if you've taken over the gun cabinet that HE bought. Does that mean you will be making over the lampshade that YOU bought for him? LOL
    I can't see if thats Outlander series in your romantic book section either.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is one of those few items I'd throw a tantrum like a 4 year old to get....

    ReplyDelete