Garage Sale Treasure

One of the things I want to share with everyone is how to make a house feel like a home, but on a budget. A very small budget. As a young couple my fiance and myself don't make a whole lot, especially as a new teacher, our budget is small. I find this as a challenge. And as a competitive person this really gets me going! So over the next few months I will show you all our tips and tricks for making it work.

Over the summer I finally got the chance to use an idea I found on Pinterest. While out doing our rounds at garage sales we came across this sweet bookcase. As a frugal shopper my fiance was not happy about the $7 price tag. So after some haggling, showing them the only $5 bill we had left, he got the bookcase for a whooping $5. 
So my new challenge was to create an amazing vintage looking bookcase for $5 and I was going to accomplish it.

  First thing was to finally get the bookcase unload from my SUV and into the garage. To be honest I was worried I did not have enough stuff laying around the garage to complete this project. So I re-looked at the design I saw online, which showed a small white bookcase with distressed painted pallets as the back board. Well this was a 6 foot tall bookcase. I didn't think pallets were going to work this time. This was fine as I knew we had an extra section of fence laying around after we fixed and relocated our fence last spring.

I  grabbed the hammer and started pulling away the tall single pieces. I had six boards to work with and just enough space for them to fit behind the bookcase. The next thing I needed was paint and while trying to keep this project under $5 I had to use what was sitting in our paint cupboard.

I thought I won the jackpot! I had a bunch of paint left over from previous projects. Good thing I don't throw anything away.

So I picked my favorite six colors and pulled them out to get ready for painting. I quickly did a wipe down and did a very light sand to some spots where gunk was stuck to the boards from being outside for years. The pin I was looking to for inspiration had suggested painting, sanding, and then staining the board. I however did not have that much time and had zero stain. So I took a very stiff brush and just painted lightly over the boards giving it that distressed look by hand. When I was finished my fiance couldn't figure out how I didn't need to sand the boards for the look but it worked out wonderfully!

You can sort of see from the picture that in some spots I made sure to have more paint or a 'heavier hand' then in other spots to get the distressed look. I was really pleased with the result.


For the next part I needed a little extra help as making sure the boards were straight up and down and to reach the nails at the top of the book case but after getting it all nailed together I couldn't wait to get it in the house and set up.




You can see from the picture that the last two boards hung over by about a half to 3/4 of an inch. We debated about cutting it off or just leaving it. In the end we decided to leave it for now but could still take it off later on.  I was really excited for how well it turned out and couldn't wait to get the rest of the shelves back in and get it set up in the house.

So it took me quite a while to get everything just the way I wanted it but I am really enjoying having a bookshelf finally! For years my poor books have just laid around the house in random places. Now they have a place to call home.
All for just $5!

Here we go!

Alright, this is it. I'm going to jump into the world of blogs. As a newly employed teacher, recently engaged bride-to-be, home owner, crafter, athlete, Halloween fanatic and Do-It-Yourselfer I'm hoping I can bring my little bit of life, knowledge, and excitement to the "world wide web". 
From a little town in Minnesota to the big world of blogs I hope if I can help just one person ignite that spark for inspiration I will feel like I have done my job.