Kilby Gets an Upgrade

So, I have a lot of stuff. I don't mean to acquire so many things as I do, it just happens! So many tiny things go into sewing, crafting & the like...it is difficult to be a crafter without things to craft with! As a result, I need a ton of storage. 

Two apartments ago S and I bought the Kilby from my favorite home store, IKEA. The Kilby has been very useful for storing things, but unlike its grown-up big brother, the Billy, the Kilby is not very pleasant to look at. The blonde wood is okay, not my favorite; but the nondescript grey backing is just so sad. I've been wanting to cover it up for some time now, but have been unable to commit to a pattern.

In case you were wondering why S and I bought the ugly bookshelf, it is because the Kilby costs decidedly much, much less than any of the comparable Billy products. In fact, I just bought my first Billy shelf this week!  

Last week S and I had a rare day off from work together. The whether was great so we hit the city, hanging out at all our favorite places. I decided that today was the day that we fix up the sad Kilby, so we went to Trohv, I picked out all  my favorite spring-weather papers, and we went home & got to work!  

Before!

See the grey + blonde bookcase on the right? Sad, huh.

 Before - All cleaned off. Notice we also took down the black wall shelf on the left?

Before

 We cleaned the Kilby from top to bottom to get rid of all the dust.

To test out the effectiveness of this adhesive we put a test strip of paper on the bottom. 

What pretty piece of test paper!
As expected, the adhesive worked great.

I laid out the paper rolls to measure. I wanted to cut as little as possible.  

We taped the edges of the shelf walls with painters tape to protect them from the spray adhesive.

We decided to cut the paper about an inch longer on each side so we could razor the edges for a nice, clean finish.

After!

I just love how it turned out! The sunroom is SO much more cheery now that the grey backing has been updated to bright dots & floral prints.

The project was quick & easy; with two people it took us less than two hours from start to finish. 

Thanks for checking out my bookcase makeover! I hope you have been inspired to update an old piece of your furniture into a piece that makes you smile.