Last summer, I was at my favorite store, Goodwill Outlet, and I saw this sad little purple bookshelf / cubby holder. I was searching for a cheap credenza for one of our basement guest bedrooms, and I thought to myself, “Kathryn, maybe this is the credenza of your dreams.” The logical side of my brain said, “No, that is a piece of crap,” but the creative side said, “buy it and see if it can be made over. It’s only $1.99.” That’s the joy of Goodwill Outlet. With prices so low, there is honestly no reason not to buy something you are on the fence about. So I bought it. Then I enlisted Joey to help me brainstorm how we could make it into a credenza. Here is the before.
Side note – isn’t the flooring on my garage pretty amazing? It’s not in very good shape, and I have no idea why someone thought that type of flooring was appropriate for a garage, but I love it irregardless. Anyways, back to the makeover. We decided to flip the bookshelf on it’s side, add some hairpin legs, and remove the nasty purple paint. Sounds easy, right? Well, not exactly. The paint was really hard to strip off. I spent a solid afternoon trying to remove the layers of purple using Citri-Strip. Eventually, I gave up and took out my electric sander. I got the outside looking great, but I couldn’t get the purple paint removed from the inner corners, so I made an executive decision to paint the inside white. Fortunately, I really love the look with the white paint.
I mean look at this beauty. Not to brag, but I think it looks like a super high end credenza. I bet you would have never guessed it was a cheap bookshelf from Goodwill Outlet, am I right?
On another side tangent, I really, really hate the carpet in our basement. Right now my solution is to cover it with rugs where possible, but I’m wondering for a future renovation, what flooring choices people recommend. It gets pretty cold down there, so I’m assuming wood wouldn’t be warm enough. Anyone have any thoughts?