Homeschool Library Phase One

The room is finally coming together!  There are still a ton of little things to finish and I have to decorate but I wanted to let you have a peek out how it's coming along. 

Here is the before!

The bookcases are the Billy Bookcases from IKEA.  These are super inexpensive and I love all the option you can choose from!  I will be adding cabinet doors to the bottom of the stand alone unit to hide some of our messy homeschool supplies and the magazine racks are perfect for displaying books for the kids to see and hopefully strike an interest. 

We had a carpenter come in and add crown molding to the top of the bookcases, a 1X4 along the bottom and shoe molding to tie it in with the baseboards.  We were updating all of the casings and baseboards in this room anyway so I had it built-in to the baseboards and chair rail but you can just do a quick up grade with crown and still get a great look.  I also decided to fill all the excess shelf holes and paint the bookcases so they matched the trim work.  I chose the window and door casing style to give the house a cottage look.  The 7" baseboards with short ceilings also help add that cottage charm.

The windows need to be replaced but that won't be happening this year so I painted the black framing white to match the trim.  It doesn't look great if the shades are up but we don't lift these shades ever so it was a perfect solution for now.  The bamboo shades are from Lowes and I love the filtered light!  I will be adding drapes for privacy and comfort. 

My wonderful husband built the desk for me.  This was so easy!  It's just a piece of oak plywood and to finish the edge we used left over baseboard cap.  When flipped upside down it made the perfect finishing touch.  The desk was put in to hide the air return but is now my favorite part of the room!  It gives the kids a place for writing lessons and me a place to prepare lesson plans. 



Here are a few other Billy Bookcase inspirations.

This is a photo from Tricia at home made happy.  This is actually one of my favorite blogs!  She has such beautiful taste and is so inspiring.  She also homeschools six beautiful children!  You need to head over and check out her home tour!




If you head over to Maillardville Manor you can read a tutorial on how to create this bookcase using the Billy bookcases.  She also has an amazing home tour! 




What do you think so far?