Ten June: Chevron Painted Bookshelf Makeover

What the whaaaat? Michelle actually did a home project? Yay-uh, you can virtually raise the roof with me, folks. I told you last week that I was feeling inspired to get creative. This girl don't play around- I've got a few fun projects up my sleeve! Including this chevron painted bookshelf that I just finished.

I can thank my friends over at Wayfair for lighting the fire under me for this project. They (along with the contest's sponsor, Hometalk) invited me to participate in a blogger DIY challenge. So fun, right? All I had to do was pick an item from Wayfair and then make it over according to one of the following themes: black and white, geometric pattern or rope. Even though the rest of the design world is kind of over it, I'm still totally in love with chevron and decided to use it as my geometric pattern.

Here's the basic wooden bookshelf before I got started.

I spray painted the shelf with a coat of glossy white and then used Frog Tape to tape chevron stripes along each shelf. At first, I tried to measure out the zig zags so that they were even, but ~~I can't do math~~ it never looked right. I didn't want the stripes to be too narrow. So I sort of winged it and ended up with some of the chevron stripes ending in the middle of the shelf instead of the top, if that makes sense. Works for me! I just cut the excess tape off with an Exacto knife.

Next up, I spray painted the entire shelf a fun spring green. I typically don't spray paint furniture, but it really is the easiest way to avoid major brush strokes. You just have to be sure to do maaaany (in my case, like 12) light coats of paint to avoid drips. And don't forget to spray in the cracks and crannies of whatever piece you're painting. Ha, I said cracks and crannies.

I chose the spring green because I want to use this shelf in HDawg's nursery. Annnd I just realized I haven't shown you guys pictures of that room in our new rental house yet! It looks substantially like his nursery at the old house, but with khaki colored walls instead of blue walls. I thought about painting the piece a firey orange-red like this, but the room really needs some cool tones since the khaki walls and yellow rug make things very warm-colored up in there. He's already got a ton of blue in the space, so green it was.

I expected the green spray paint to bleed under the tape a lot worse than it actually did. I even bought white paint to touch up the white chevron stripes just in case the bleed-through was bad. Luckily, I didn't have to worry about that! Way to be, Frog Tape.

I'm going to let the bookshelf and it's snazzy new paint cure for awhile (5-7 days?) before I put it in baby H's nursery. I can't wait to see it loaded up with his books and toys!

Thanks again to Wayfair for asking me to participate in this challenge. It's been fun! If you want to check out more of the other blogger's projects, you can find them on this Pinterest board.

Whatcha think about my chevron bookshelf?! Have you made over any furniture lately?