Painted Bookcases

Today is our big brother's birthday!  Happy Birthday Ben!! Thanks for all the years you tortured us when we were younger.  Last night we celebrated his birthday by playing a ton of board games and munching on yummy food!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

 One of the best things about blogging is that we get to showcase our work on here.  We love painting furniture and we love sharing my passion with all of you.  It's amazing how a coat of paint can completely transform a piece of furniture. 

Since I've been blogging I've been contacted by a few friends to paint some furniture for them.  And several months ago my childhood friend and his wife contacted me to paint some bookshelves for them.  They recently bought a new home and had some bookshelves installed on either side of the fireplace. 

 I love the extra storage the bookcases give them plus they look great.  To make them match the rest of the house the homeowners asked me to paint the bookcases white (the same color as their fireplace).  That probably sounds pretty easy to do but if you've ever painted wood or furniture you know there are a lot more steps involved.

The first thing I did was sand the bookcases.  The builder did a great job making these piece but they weren't completely sanded after they were installed.  So I sanded them down and then caulked all of the seams.  If you don't caulk the seams you will see a gap between the bookcase and wall -this just gives them a more professional look.  I also filled in the nail holes with wood filler. 

 

Once the caulk and wood filler were dry I sanded the piece one more time and then it was ready to be primed.  I thought I was only going to need one quart of primer for these bookcases but it ended up needing two quarts.

 

The next step was to paint the entire thing.  Even though I primed the bookcases they still needed two coats of paint.   Luckily it only took one gallon of paint.

Here they are all finished!  Don't they look awesome?!? 

It's always a little nerve racking doing things for friends.  I want my clients to really like how the piece turns and I want them to be comfortable giving me their honest opinion.  Luckily, I think we're good enough friends so I think they were telling me the truth when they said they liked them :)  

Do you ever feel nervous working for your friends?