How To Refurbish an Old Bookcase or Built-in

For many people, making over their home is just one way to create a new feeling without buying anything new or moving somewhere different. It can bring new life to a stale setting for a relatively low budget. If you have a bookcase or built-in shelving, you might be considering replacing them when you make over your home. However, if you want to save some of your makeover budget for other items, you can always give an old bookshelf or shelving set up a fresh look with a coat of paint.

This article will cover how to do a built-in bookcase makeover using paint and answer why you should paint your bookcase or built-in, so keep reading below!

The first reason to paint your bookcase or built-in shelving is that you want your old decor to match your new decor style. If you used to have a very rustic, cozy look, and now your home or apartment looks like a modern, metallic-chic space, your plain wooden bookshelf might look out of place. Rather than getting rid of the bookshelf or built-in shelving and replacing it with something new, you can pretend that your former furniture is new by updating it.

If your bookcase has seen better days and now has chips in its paint or an uneven finish, a fresh coat of paint might be all it needs to look even better than its old self. Often, we want our furniture to look good forever. That is a natural thing to want. However, over time, even the highest quality bookshelves and other furniture pieces tend to start to lose their luster. Bookshelves tend to show their age over time from normal wear and tear or an added layer of damage, such as kids drawing on them or a new pet scratching off the old paint. When you still love the function of a quality bookshelf but hate the form that its paint job or stain is taking, you can always buy a can of paint and repaint it.

Finally, repainting a bookcase can be fun and relaxing. There’s nothing like going to the painting aisle and picking out a pretty color to put on your new bookshelf. Once you get home, strip the old finish or color with a paint stripping medium, sand any uneven spots, and apply a coat of primer if you paint it with acrylics or other paints. Then, you can take it to a well-ventilated area and paint it by hand with a brush or let a spray paint nozzle do the trick.

If you are trying to repaint built-in shelves, you can do the same process. The only difference is that you will want to remove the shelves before painting to avoid gaps in the paint.

Overall, it’s a fun way to add some extra charm to old shelving.