The bookcase experiment

In my previous post, I lamented how everything in my house was brown. Yesterday, as hubby and I were sitting in the sunroom we got an idea. We were looking at the two bookcases on either side of the television and wondered what they would look like without the back panel, so we decided to take it off.

We loved the open shelving look, but, even though it had one locked in shelf, it had no support and swayed back and forth.

So hubby made these brackets and put them on all 4 corners and squared up the bookcase as he went along.

And he used bigger nails than the ones it came with for

gripping into the pressboard.

All that work, but unfortunately, it failed. The bookcases still swayed.

Luckily, he had taken care when removing the back panels not to damage them, so he brought them into the workshop and painted them the same color as the walls and put them back on. 

So here's how they looked before:

and here's how they look now

Before

After

I don't know. What do you think? It sure makes everything on the bookcase stand out, so I decided to weed through and pull out some books that I don't want anymore. All those books across the bottom are photo albums. That's just a fraction of the photos we have. There's tons more in storage. With all the downsizing we've done, I still feel like we have too much stuff.

When we move, we will have to replace that brown shag carpet. We really hate it so we're thinking of replacing it now. We're looking at vinyl plank flooring in a whitewashed pine. We think it will really brighten up the room.  Stay tuned!