somewhere over the book rainbow

I don't know why this is, but it seems that every time I put up a blog post saying "This is what I'm going to do!", almost immediately something changes my mind. This is exactly what happened on Sunday, when less than an hour after posting this post about looking for a giant, dark wood, antique bookshelf, I happened upon this photo:

Which of course changed my mind completely. I started scheming about how I could get a mid-century bookshelf without paying hundreds of dollars (which is how much they run around these parts). That's when I remembered this little guy, which had recently been kicked out of the guest bedroom and was sitting abandoned in an empty corner downstairs, piled with dirty laundry.

The outside may look adorable, but the inside has fallen victim to many an unfortunate "remodel" by it's previous owners.

Over the course of it's life, the poor little thing has been sawed, chopped, nailed, added on to, taken apart, and put back together. The sides were filled with what I guess were once anchors for shelves, but they were all made out of scrap wood and mostly dry rotted. It only took about 10 minutes to rip all of it out.

My husband removed the doors, but for you preservationists out there, don't worry ... we saved them, hinges and all, and will keep them around so they can be put back on at any time.

We recycled some of the scrap wood we'd pulled out of the inside, made a new shelf out of it, and viola!

A mid-century bookshelf of my very own. And for free, no less:)

Check back soon for another fun little guest bedroom-related project, which isn't quite done yet!