Billy Built-ins: Filling the Shelves

We have a finished product, which includes lots and lots of empty shelves (a homeschool mom’s dream) and happy helpers posing in front of it.  And, a picture of my biggest helper and a photo bomber.

On the far left, we have our board games. Well, most of them anyway. Some of them are still hidden away in a cupboard. In the cute old fashioned trash cans (from IKEA), we have Lego and Wedgits.

Above the computer area, I have teacher supplies, so, I put them up a little higher to discourage the kids. Behind the computer I have a stick on blackboard. I love this. One day, I hope to have blackboard covering the entire area behind the computer, but I’m not sure that will ever actually happen. In the meantime, this will have to do.

Next we have shelves containing part of our collection of fiction. We have stickers on the binding of the fiction books to make it easy for the kids to put them away. The books are sorted by reading/interest level and each shelf has a different color sticker. On the bottom shelf, each of the kids has a magazine holder and a binder. 

On the top shelf on the right, we have oversized books and the books I currently use for teaching.  The shelves beneath that hold various craft supplies, coloring books, activity books and white boards. Apparently, I didn't take a picture of these shelves right after we filled them, because these shelves are definitely showing signs of use, compared to the other photos.

All the cute buckets and containers hold various school supplies, craft supplies, etc. This is the beginning of the non-fiction collection (which continues on beyond the built-ins). Yes, I have them all filed using the Dewey decimal system. I found myself buying books I already had or just not being able to find books I needed. So, years ago, I broke down and spent the time to catalog my books. I’m so glad I did.

One last shot of the awesome lights on top of the shelves. I do keep things on top of the shelves as well. 

And, a picture of the whole shelf setup.

Billy Bookcase - Detail Work

The next task was the backs of the bookcases. IKEA supplies you with a heavy duty cardboard back, but we wanted a more sturdy and attractive back. We bought beadboard paneling and cut it to fit into the back of the bookcases. Then we painted the beadboard. I loved the colored paint on one of the blogs. So, we decided to use that idea. We went with a pale yellow. The kids were thrilled to help with the painting.

Then, we nailed the beadboard to the back of the bookcases to secure them. Some of the pieces didn't quite fit, so we had to sand the edges until they slid into place.

Next we had to get all the little trim pieces. My husband works in construction, building beautiful custom homes. So, his DIY projects are always very well done. This means we needed lots of little trim pieces to make the shelves look perfect. Next came lots of sanding and painting. We took one of the shelves to the paint store to get white paint that matches. We only painted the trim pieces, not the actual IKEA shelves, and they matched great.

Getting a smooth finish on the bottom edge was the hardest part. There is a tiny 1/8” gap that several bloggers filled in with caulk or something like that. But, that wasn’t good enough. We went ahead and bought 1/8” trim pieces and cut them to size to fill in those gaps. On that, we put a trim piece. Then we put a baseboard piece in front of that. The baseboard reached perfectly flush with the bottom shelf down to the floor. We did a lot of sanding on that area to make it smooth.

We had to make the walls thicker where the computer opening is, because the full length pieces are only one bookshelf wide and we needed the extra width to match up to the side walls of the bridge piece. So, he cut white laminate shelves to size to make it double wide. We also put wide trim pieces on all the places where the shelves met – so it looks like one big piece of wood instead of two shelves stuck together. And, just to make it all look better, we nailed a wide piece on the front of the main cross pieces. It makes it look like a hefty piece of furniture instead of a bunch of cheap Billy bookcases.

Next step was the crown moulding. This is the first time my husband has ever done crown moulding, but being the super talented and handy guy that he is, he did a great job.

When we were done with all that, we puttied every little nail hole. One more layer of paint on all the trims and we’re almost there.

Time to decide where the shelves belong and insert them.

Last, but not least, since hubby is an electrician, he put LED lighting on the top.  Looks great!