Looking at my book shelves one day, I realized they needed a makeover.  They were cheap to begin with and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money to update them.

I was wandering around Lowes pricing out various ideas and came across WAINSCOTING PAINTABLE WALL PAPER.  Never heard of the stuff, but it looked dang cool, so I thought I’d give it a try.

I first spray painted everything that I was going to paint white:

Then I painted with semi-gloss paint the shelves and box.  It took THREE coats and I used Swiss Coffee from Home Depot color, the same as my house trim.

I then laid the shelves down flat and applied the wall paper following the directions.  That middle shelf is permanent, otherwise I would have pulled that out too.  It took four separate pieces of wall paper for each shelf.  I wasn’t worried about getting it absolutely perfect because it would mostly be covered by books anyway.

I then taped off with painters tape and painted the wall paper a Sherwin-Williams color called Mega Giege, which is the same color as my walls.  It took two coats with a small foam roller.  Again, I wasn’t too worried about perfection.  Here’s a close up with a few of my favorite books:

I wish I could arrange my books to look prettier, but we’re going for functional here.  But, you get the idea.  It completely brightens up the room and matches my other furniture and decor much more!

A side-by-side view: