Repurposed Bookshelf Design

This Repurposed Bookshelf Design is sponsored by HomeRight. All opinions of how their Spray Shelter turned my barn rescue into a real gem are my own. You can see my full disclosure here.

Do I have a fun project to share with you today! This Repurposed Bookshelf Design started out in the back of a barn covered with a ton of miscellaneous junk. It was the first time we had picked a barn and I was like a kid in a candy store pulling things out of it.

(If you follow me on Instagram, you saw the pictures I shared of our first barn pick.)

This is what the dresser looked like when we brought it home. When we first saw this piece in the barn, we didn’t know it was a dresser. It was covered with a lot of things and the drawers weren’t in it so it was hard to tell. I didn’t care what it was because all I saw was potential.

{Affiliate links are used in this post. You can read my disclosure HERE.}

When I looked at it better, I thought it would make a great shelving unit. All we needed to do was make some shelves and then paint it all one color to make one, cohesive piece.

To get the job done easily, I first had to set up my handy, dandy HomeRight Spray Shelter.

Matt cut thin pieces of wood to fit for the shelves. We set the dresser and the shelves inside the shelter so we could get it all painted at once. The Spray Shelter and the HomeRight Finish Max Paint Sprayer made easy work of painting the piece. Can you imagine painting it by hand? My either.

Once the paint dried and the shelves were nailed in place, we made reclaimed boxes to sit on the shelves. They are a simple, four-sided box with a thin plywood base.

I picked up a box of metal numbers and letters at a yard sale years ago. I have used them on many projects and the wood boxes needed a few numbers to finish this project. (You can find similar numbers HERE.)

The numbers are silver so I spray painted them black with Rustoleum spray paint.

Can you believe the difference? This piece looks brand new!

I love being able to take pictures outside. The weather has been so great!

This bookshelf has a character mark that I think is so precious. When we were picking the barn, the woman who was showing us around said that the 93-year old man who owned the barn used to work in it. He stored a lot of tools and supplies in the barn as well. The top of this dresser has a few saw marks from when we was working on it.

Priceless.

You can’t buy that story or character in any store.

The rustic boxes with the cool-toned gray paint color look perfect together. (I mixed a few paint colors I had on hand to get this color. I wanted to make sure I had enough paint so I had to mix a few colors to get more paint.)

The numbers add some fun and a touch of whimsy to the entire bookshelf design.

I called this a bookshelf design, but it could be used for so many things; entertainment center, toy storage, dresser, coffee station, art center, etc.

The boxes are easy to slide out and add so much storage to this bookshelf design.

Would you have brought this piece home from a barn? What would you have done with it? Now that you see the final piece, what would you store in it?

If you don’t have time to create your own dresser, there are some beautiful options online:

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