Brightening up the Built ins

We love the built ins that flank the fireplace in our family room.  They provide so much storage- photo albums, kids games, DVD movies...

They were painted off white when we moved in.  I knew we wanted to go with a crisp white eventually, but we hadn't gotten around to starting that until Labor Day weekend.  It's taken since then to finish it up (I broke it down into little steps...)

I started by removing all the stuff from the shelves
and taking the doors & hardware off...

I painted the upper shelves first, since I had to stand on the countertop to reach.

I couldn't believe that it took FOUR coats to cover the off-white!

Then I moved on to the bottom cabinetry and the doors 

(which were spread out in our dining room for painting)

While letting everything dry for a few days, I organized the shelves inside the cabinets.

Then replaced the outlet covers, put the hardware back on the doors, and the doors back on the cabinets.

For one set of the game cabinet doors, I decided to use Chalkboard paint.

The kids could use them to keep track of high scores, or list the games inside.  

I don't know... it just seemed like a fun idea.

The next thing on the list was putting wallpaper along the back of the shelves.

I decided on yellow and found a print that Mike & I both really liked...

Of course, none of the shelves were exactly the same size as any other, 

so each had to be individually measured out. 

This took another couple of days! 

I stuck the wallpaper up with painters tape. 

I wanted to be able to easily switch it out for another pattern someday.

Here are the finished photos!

The yellow basket I painted with spraypaint, and I'm working on incorporating other splashes of yellow through the rest of the room.

Shelving to the left of the fireplace:

Shelving to the right of the fireplace:

Some close ups:

I'm still playing with the placement of items on the shelves. If you look at the first photo in this post, you'll see that I used to have all of my antique cameras on a set of shelves, all the books on another section, all my McCoy vases together, etc.  

This time I decided to mix it up a bit!

It seems like this adds to the new airy-ness of the shelves.

I need to take a wide "After shot" that shows both sets of shelves 

(but need to get the rest of the family room put back in order first!)