Closet Turned Built-In

One of my favorite details of the house we just left behind was the sweet little built-in bookshelf we made for the basement. 

With everything we had going on, plus adding our third little fella into the mix, it took us longer than I care to admit to get 'er done. But get it done, we did.

It all started when we had the basement dry walled. We had planned for a closet in that spot, but seeing it all framed out and dry walled like that gave us an idea. It was the perfect spot for a built in, and we had plenty of unused closets down there, so why not use that space to make a statement and add some character to our home!

 

We did most of the finish work on our own, with the exception of the staircase, so the trim work and paint fell upon the hubby. He enjoys doing a bit of finish carpentry here and there, and we were under the gun to get the walls painted and the trims in and painted and caulked so the carpet could come. All of this fell around the time I was hospitalized and put on bed rest with little boy #3, so we did the bear minimum to make it work and put off finishing the built-in for a later date. 

As you can see below, we placed the bead board on the back,  and had made a few shelves for it, but didn't complete it for some time.

 

My original plan was just to paint the back white like the rest of the trim work, but on a whim I chose this pretty blue paint and it really helped bring some color into an otherwise neutral space. 

 

Around the time we were prepping our home for selling, we finally rounded up the rest of the materials needed and put the remaining shelves in. I brought in some last minute accessories and we called it good.

I had intentions of filling these cute frames (all from target) with pictures of our own family, but when we sold the house on the first day, it was no longer a priority for me. Instead, we moved to boxing things up and packing up our life. 

So, we only got to enjoy this shelf finished for about a month! Sometimes it's that last little push to finish a long project that just kills us. We always say it's usually the last 10% that we struggle with getting done. Please tell me we're not the only ones! I sure loved walking past it and admiring it for that short period of time though!