My kingdom for a book

Neither of us is a minimalist, but perhaps my greatest weakness as far as collecting goes is for books. I may never actually get through my entire list of to-reads, but that won't stop me from buying them when I'm in a good bookstore. Kate's no slouch in the reading department, either, which makes for a lot of literature to house.

Before Kate moved in to the apartment in April of last year, she had Tom build two narrow bookshelves in the bedroom, and those plus a small bookcase just past the entry door sufficed to hold all her books and music, but we just knew we'd need more shelf space. 

During a visit shortly before we made the big merge, my mom (hi, Marta!) took pity on us and brought us to Gothic Cabinet Craft where we ordered a custom-sized bookshelf that would reach nearly to the ceiling without being too wide or too deep so as to block the front door when it opens.

About three weeks later, they delivered this unfinished piece:

Unfinished pine.

We had originally wanted to paint it white (white ceilings, white molding, white doors...why not a white cabinet?) but decided to do it ourselves rather than tack on another $200-300 onto the price of the unit. And we sure were glad we bought it unfinished, because we quickly changed our minds on the color. Painting it stark white would have made it feel a bit monolithic with its height, not to mention that it felt juvenile (baby's room, anyone?), so we decided to try and stain it to look like the piece of driftwood that we have mounted over the door.

Creating texture.

After one spectacularly failed attempt to make our own stain using vinegar and steel wool, we got the color right by using a grey stain from the can as a base color, then using a chestnut colored stain as a light second coat, just wiping it on and then quickly off with a rag, to get a textured, varied color.

Staining the shelves.

The first boxes we unpacked when I moved in were my 10+ book boxes, splitting the new bookshelf between my fiction (on the top) and Kate's music (on the bottom).

We love the color of the bookshelf itself and also our colorful array of books and objects.