The first thing needed in this art room was more storage! In came the big white bookshelf. I was very pleased that this bookshelf was white. The heaviness between the green walls and red accents was too much and it needed to be lightened up. This white bookshelf also brings out the white trim woodwork in the room! Double bonus!
You can tell from this picture that the bookshelf needed a little TLC. The backing was about to fall off and it also had some of the top layer of paper torn off of it. What to do? First I went through all my scrapbooking paper and I thought about putting it on the backing but it wouldn't have all matched and the openings to the shelf are more than 12" high so I would have to be very creative and edge each bookshelf with a paper border. Sorry but I have two little boys..that's WAY too time consuming for me! Then I thought about buying some red fabric to attach at the back. Great idea except that we were snowed in and couldn't get out. I thought about this for a long time and remembered that I had just gotten a tablecloth that I really liked and it had red strawberries on it! Thank you Lord!
Here's how I did it:
I took off the backing and laid it on the floor. Then I took the fabric and stapled... that's right STAPLED it to the backing! WhoHoo. I used a regular stapler, nothing heavy duty at all.
I actually had a piddly cheap stapler which worked but if you had a better stapler it might not have taken so many staples. Then I cut off the extra fabric on the side for a later use and attached the back to the bookshelf with the original nails and a heavy duty stapler. We put it up and it was great but needed something extra...in comes the left over fabric. It was the perfect size to go down the side of the shelf so my sweet honey stapled it on and voila! It's not perfect...the table cloth was a little short so it doesn't go all the way down the bookshelf but I knew I'd have stuff on the shelf so you wouldn't see it anyway. You wouldn't know it if I hadn't of told you! Now this bookshelf makes me smile!
Again, I could've taken more time and filled in all the holes to make it look more expensive but while we were doing this our littlest son decided to pretend he was a monkey and took a flying leap off the couch, got stuck between the couch and window while hitting his head on the edge of the window. We then checked out all the blood and decided to try to get out of the driveway which led us to gettting the car stuck where it still sits today (almost a week later). Our son is now fine but you get the point, the less time consuming the better.
A few days later I started adding all the art stuff. I didn't want it too crowded so I was very selective in what to add. It's hard to see in the picture but the top stuff is mostly contained in this green wire see through basket which I really like. I might eventually move that stuff and add fabric into it. Then I sorted things into containers. The sewing stuff is sorted into mason jars that have little tags attached with raffia. It helped to have fabric on the back of the bookshelf...it made me not want to add clutter to it.
What tips have you found to help reduce clutter on your bookshelves?
