Billy Bookcase Hack

Welcome to Week 2 of the $100 Room Challenge – My Ikea Billy Bookcase Hack

Week 1|Week2|Week 3|Week 4

This is the part of this challenge that I am the most excited about!

Billy Bookcase Hack

Cutting Edge Stencils has provided us with stencils, but we will still be counting this towards our budget for the purposes of the challenge. My stencil is the vision craft stencil in medium. The cost of this stencil is $22.95(US)  I’m planning on using my stencil in a couple of areas, to pull the space together. The main focus for the stencil is as a backing for my IKEA Billy bookcases. I have 3 of them. The first is this one, that I bought about 10 years ago. It’s going to need a paint job, to make it white before it gets stenciling done. I contemplated just painting it like it was, but I decided it was ultimately more efficient to dismantle it, paint it, and then reassemble it. It’s actually pretty easy to remove the backing, by just using a flathead screwdriver to pry up the tiny nails holding the backing on and then you can just slide out the backing. The rest of it just comes apart pretty much the same way it goes together 🙂

I started by priming it with a coat of Zinser primer, because it’s a shiny finish. Then I took out one of the shelves from the other bookcases that I am re-using , and took it to Home Depot. I didn’t colour match it, I just brought a bunch of white samples out to my truck, and picked the one that I felt was the best match. I went with Frost by Behr ($24) in semi-gloss.Here it is all apart and getting a paint job outside.  A side note, Frost was not a great  colour match once it was all painted. Luckily I wasn’t planning on having them side by side. Besides making it easier to paint, the other really great reason to dismantle the bookcase, is because it’s WAY easier to stencil the back when it’s a nice flat sheet with no corners or shelves. Although I did most of the painting outside, I moved to the garage to do the stencilling. There are bugs outside, and also it was a bit windy this day, so the garage is a safer place to do this type of work.

Here is a detailed tutorial on stencilling the bookcases.

Stencilling

1. Remove backing from bookcases
2. Coat with flat white paint
3. Place stencil in place and tape
4. Load roller with paint
5. Remove excess paint
6. Roll lightly until covered
7. Lift and reposition stencil
8. Repeat until pattern is completeIt took me about half an hour for each of the smaller sheets, and about an hour for the large one. I have to say I am SUPER HAPPY with how these turned out. And I simply have to point out that my little helper here hung out with me the whole time I was stencilling and never went anywhere near my work. She’s the best!!

I decided to use this paint. I’m having a metallic moment. And I bought WAY TOO much. Oh well, I’m sure it will come in handy for another project. And I have to say, I really loved this paint. It went on smoothly and has really great coverage. I see more of this paint in my future, which is good, since I have lots left over  I bought mine at Lowe’s you can get it here. Cost of the paint was $29.

Here is the small bookcase with stencilling completed.

Future plans for these are to do up some storage boxes for the shelves, as well as placing some of my crafting accouterments here such as my Cricut and laminating machine, and a few little ornaments and decor items.

Table and chairs

This used to be Greg’s dining room set when he was in his condo. Angus the cat broke one of the chairs when he jumped up on it, and it fell over and the leg broke. It also smashed out the glass in an old credenza that was sitting behind it. Destructive kitty. And just before we moved one of the other chairs broke. It’s probably at least 15 years old, and was probably purchased at K-mart. It has a bit of wear and tear, but overall it’s in pretty good shape, and will work perfectly for what I need. This will be my layout table. I’m not doing anything to the table besides giving it a cleaning.

Chairs

The remaining 2 chairs are in pretty good shape except for the seats, which are pretty yucky. So for these, I found this old fabric, which I probably bought about 15 or 20 years ago!!!!!!

This will work perfectly for new seat covers. This is so easy to do, I’m not sure why I didn’t do this sooner.

Seat Replacement

Remove the seat from the  chair. Measure the seat with allowance for backing. For these I needed 55x55cm (22×22 inches) So I just cut two squares to those measurements. Unless it’s really dirty I would’t bother removing the old seat cover. This one had been steam cleaned and so it was actually clean but had bad water stains.

Decide what direction you want the pattern to go (assuming you choose a fabric with a pattern)

Lay the seat on top of the wrong side of the fabric.

Start by stapling the four sides in the centre

Then work your way around the seat ensuring the fabric is tight, but don’t pull so tight that you get “dents” in the shape. I was planning on using my Upholstery Stapler but my Compressor  broke 🙁 This is what I get for buying used power tools without testing them. Lessons… But you can easily do this with a Light duty staple gun. Pull the corners in small creases to avoid lumps.

Once you are finished,. Attach the seat back onto the chair frame. Repeat for additional chairs.

Here is the old and new side by side. Better!

Here is a closer look

So here is my ‘new” layout table and chairs.

And here is the breakdown of what I have spent so far:

• Paint – Behr Frost 1L (pint) – $15 Can – $10.50 US
• Rustoleum Metallics Sterling Silver 750 mL$30 Can – $21 US
• Cutting Edge Stencil  $23 US
• Beauty Tone Velvet Paint Roller $5 Cdn $3.50 US

Total US funds: $58 – Whew! still room to shop 🙂

Please come back next week –

I’m going to transform this Manicure table into my new sewing table. It’s getting a make-over.

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