Bookcase Makeover

Time to sell another piece of furniture!  I found this beauty in the basement of my old apartment. Under all of the filth, you can see that someone actually spent a lot of time painting sunflowers on the sides and top, as well as polka dots on the front of the shelves. Interesting choice.

Bookcase before.

After some clean up, priming, and painting, this is what I was left with...

Better.

Better, but boring.  Although not really visible in the picture, the back of the bookcase has some cracks in it. It's still a study, solid wood piece, but I didn't want those cracks to be visible.  My solution was to add some wallpaper to the back of the bookcase.  It would hide those cracks and add some visual interest to the piece.  I picked up a roll of contact paper at the dollar store.  Then I cut some pieces of foam core to fit in each of the three sections of the bookcase.

Foam core cut to size.

I rolled out the contact paper and cut pieces about an inch bigger than the pieces of foam core.  I removed the protective backing and stuck the foam core down, making sure to smooth out any air bubbles.  I wrapped the excess around and stuck it to the back.

Back of foam core panel.

Front of foam core panel.

Once all three panels were complete, I added 3M adhesive squares to the back corners of the panels.  I laid the bookcase on it's back while I secured the panels to the inside so I could firmly press them down.  And here's how it turned out once all of the panels were in place...

Done!