How to Dress Up a Yard Sale Bookcase

My kids read the same books. They also play the same games and put together the same puzzles.

We don’t have a playroom, so the question becomes: where do we put the shared stuff?

Or, rather, where do we put the shared stuff so that I don’t hear, “Mom, get my brother/sister out of my room!”?

As you can see, we still have the lockers in the kids’ hallway. But they’ve filled those with LEGO sets, art supplies, and their own personal stuff (they each have their own locker).

I got this bookcase from a yard sale page on Facebook.

The shelves are in the next room – I had already taken them out when I took this “before” pic!

It’s solid wood, painted white, and tall. I knew it’d be perfect for this end of the kids’ hallway. But it was a bit banged up, and, well, boring.

I decided to do something with the back of the bookcase to give it some umph. Some pizzazz.

I thought about doing a fabric backing like I did with our built-ins at our first house. But, since it’s in the kids’ hallway, I wanted it to be easily cleanable.

I thought about paint, but the back was a little rough and worn, and I thought paint might look bad.

Enter: removable wallpaper.

I used removable wallpaper in the inside of this cabinet:

And it worked really well. So, I decided to use it again – this time, with a chevron pattern. But I am OVER chevron, so I changed it up a little. Here’s how.

First, I measured the bookcase and cut the wallpaper to size.

Then, I cut the sheet in half, along the point in the chevron pattern.

I put the left side of the paper up first. Then I turned the right side and hung it upside down, to create a contrasting V pattern.

In other words, instead of the Vs being all black or all white, now they were half black and half white. Make sense?

I did that again for the rest of the back of the bookcase. I used an exacto knife to cut the paper along the bottom shelf for an even edge.

I will tell you – this can be a frustrating process. You will get air bubbles in the wallpaper (fixable by just pulling it up and smoothing it out, or cutting a small hole in the bubble with the exacto knife and getting the air out), or the lines won’t line up properly, or something. But this is the benefit of removable wallpaper – it’s easy to fix all those problems!

Here it is – the finished, dressed-up yard sale bookcase:

I love this project because:

1. It’s easy. Removable wallpaper is easy to find and it’s easy to work with. It doesn’t require wallpaper paste or special tools. Just peel off the backing and go.
2. It’s inexpensive. This roll of removable wallpaper came from Target and cost about $30. Not too bad to transform a piece of furniture – and I didn’t use the whole roll, so I can use the rest of it for something else!
3. It’s customizable to your style and taste. Don’t like chevron? Change it up! Don’t like black and white? Find wallpaper in a bright color, or a soft color…whatever floats your boat!

My kids love the new storage and I love that I’m not refereeing them during playtime. Win!