Our Home: Built In Shelves Thrifty Makeover

The shelves in our tv room/den/main gathering room -- whatever you wanna call it -- have bugged me for a while. They are great shelves but when we moved in I just sort of threw some old books & other stuff on them & then never touched them again. They looked ugly. And they staaared at me all the time. So even though I really didn't have money to spend on this problem at the time, I found a way to do something about it!

I took a lot of the old books I had & found the hardcover ones & removed their paper covers... they look much prettier that way! I also found books of similar colors, like the white/cream books under the pewter pitcher. Much better! Or at least I think so!

This old wire fry basket is from a thrift store near me (not the one I always refer to, but another one) - it's called Second Chance Treasures & benefits homeless pets!

The photos are from our honeymoon -- I played with them in photoshop to make the colors pretty & printed them out!

The old cake pans are from the thrift store that I love down the street from me.. I think they were $1 each, yay. The moss frame is one thing I did leave on the shelves --- the tutorial for that is here!

The woodsy filler stuff in this jar & also in the fry basket is from the dollar tree! Loooove you sweet best friend dollar tree. Jars are from a thrift store.

For this shelf I framed some paper & also made us a mini version of the wedding date customized print I sell on Etsy. You should get one too! :)

The Plaza de Santa Cruz picture is one I had from Spain... I love it & it reminds me of spain every time i look at it!

Hope my newly made-over shelves make you as happy as they make me! Ok they probably don't, but hopefully they made you a little happy & a little inspired to use cheap/thrifty stuff or things you already have to reinvent parts of your home!