How a Little Idea Became a Little Library
Well, it’s been about 7 months since my library makeover,
and I am still completely obsessed with it. Especially with the addition of my
reading chair, I mean…. Look at it!
This space has been at least 10 years in the making, from
the very first time I ran out of space in a bookshelf. My book collection has
just continued to grow, and I spent so much time fantasising about a dreamy
reading room in my house. When my husband and I decided to build a house, every
single display home we went through or floor plan we looked at had one room we picked out to be ‘the library’. I’m thankful that my husband has always
been supportive of this little dream of mine - although part of me thinks he’s
just trying to make up for the fact that when we first started dating, he told
me “one day I will build you a wall of bookshelves”. So romantic, right? It
wasn’t long after that grand statement that I learnt he is not a particularly
handy person, and would probably struggle to build me a box – but I digress. It's truly the support that counts!
We designed our home with a second living area coming off
the kitchen, with plans for it to one day be a library. Having a young
daughter, we knew that this space would most likely be a library/playroom
hybrid until she was a bit older… hence all the toys on the toddler height
shelves! We moved into the house and I set up my bookshelves, ready to start
planning.
I asked my brother-in-law Brendan, who is a builder, how
much he estimated it would cost for a cabinet maker to do a room of built-in
shelves. I was talking floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall shelves with pretty
mouldings and fancy designs. When he told me approximately how much we’d be
looking at, I nearly fainted! The dream of having my own little library at home
began to feel like it would never happen. Not long after that conversation,
Bren sent me a message with a couple of screenshots from Pinterest saying “there
might be another way…”
And so we discovered the IKEA Billy bookcase hack! The idea
is simple – get a bunch of plain ol’ Billies from IKEA and work a little bit of
creative magic to make them look like the built-in bookshelves we had been
imagining.
I bought 10 bookcases, as well as these nifty height extenders – they made a huge difference to the look of the shelves and gave
them that floor-to-ceiling aesthetic I was after.
Once all the flat packs were together (which was no easy feat
and took me way longer than I care to admit), the space was ready for Bren to
start the important work. We took a trip to Bunnings to select skirting boards, cornices, mouldings and timber we would need. Bren had a vision in mind for the timber spacing between the bookshelves, and when he couldn’t find what he was after at Bunnings he
bought a router to create an ornamental fluted finish.
Here are some photos of the process….
All up, the cost for the 10 shelves and extenders and all
the other building materials was just under $2,500. While doing it this way was
about a fifth of the price it would have been if I had used a cabinet maker, it
was still not easy money that we had lying around. Enter…. The Chase Australia!
When I was on maternity leave I was completely obsessed with The Chase Australia
and The Chase UK, and applied to be on the show. I was so excited to be given
the chance to play, and after a VERY fortuitous Final Chase I walked away with
$10,000. I still can’t believe we managed that win, it was a real stroke of
luck (and a bad bout of jet lag for The Governess, I suspect.)
You can watch my episode of The Chase here!
Once the work was completed, the fun began… it was time to
get those books in the shelves! After having asked around about various methods
for sorting and organising books, I ended up in a complete mish-mash. I tried
to do one rainbow shelf with the rest sorted into genre and author, but before
long I gave up on it all and just shoved the books in anyway. I have yet to go
back and re-sort them, so any hot tips you have please let me know!
There is a couple of little jobs left to do until this library is complete, including some electrical work and a funky library ladder... I'm also on the lookout for a vintage chandelier.
And there we have it! One little Billy bookcase hack that
made all my dreams come true. I will never get sick of spending time in this
room, I love it so much. I’m so grateful to my brother-in-law for all the work
he did to help me plan this and to bring it to life – we (literally) couldn’t
have done it without you!
One last video for you all… a before and after of Sophie’s Little Library. Come over to my Instagram page to talk with me about all things books, and spend some time in my library!
Don't forget to subscribe to my blog posts at the top of the page. Happy reading!
My bestie filled my bookshelves when I was heavily pregnant, which was lovely but not necessarily how we would have done it. Over time we have just picked one bookshelf to perfect, most recently fantasy- we collected every fantasy book from the shelves and then sorted them into an empty shelf in the way we wanted. It takes time and changes so rapidly! We have sadly already run out of room in our library so we might need to take up your hack
ReplyDelete