Our Den Transformation

Post author:Julie
Post published:January 31, 2020
Post category:Life

I am still pinching myself over this transformation. What started as a “Billy Bookcase Hack” from Ikea turned into the den of my dreams!

So let’s show you where we started. This room was always a room we knew would need the most “work” when we moved in to create the space we had envisioned. First, let me start by saying it has a weird pass-through door to our Master Bedroom. It was odd since this room is right off the entry way so stepping inside our house you had a view (if the door was open) right into our room. Not ideal, especially for us who slack on always making our bed. Haha!

Odd right?! So we started by closing off the door.

Once that was done, we painted the wall where the bookcases were going to go. We used Peppercorn from Sherwin Williams and used our favorite paint the Behr Marquee. My husband made a quick trip to Ikea and picked up our Billy Bookcases. We grabbed two of the 31 1/2 x 11 x 93 1/4 ” and two of the 31 1/2x11x41 3/4 “. We wanted them to cover the entire wall and they did plus of course an extra half inch so we did have to customize one of the cabinets. You’ll never be able to tell though since the barn doors are always hiding it. The nice thing about the Billy Bookcases is they have so many different sizes so you can make them fit your space. Our TOTAL with bookcases and barn doors (including hardware) = $350.

My husband then built a “bridge” to add to the top of the bookcases to combined them. This was for looks but also so we had something to hang and support the weight of our barn doors.

It was then time to install the hardware for the barn doors. We ordered ours from Amazon and were very happy with the quality. We even had to trim it to size.

Next up was building the doors. This is where my husband and I almost gave up. The first time we built them and hung it up it wasn’t straight. We were dumbfounded. The next day we took them all apart and rebuilt them and hung them back up. Still not straight. This is the part where my husband said he was just going to “burn them”. Needless to say we sat and thought about what was wrong and realized it was HOW we were hanging them that was not making them straight. Once we got that figured out they were perfect! Below is how BIG they were. This is why we had to build them ourselves.