Another Treasure

This is another garage sale treasure I picked up a few weeks ago.  This is not the "before" picture.

Be glad for that.  Be very glad.

The good, the bad, the ugly:

The good:

• Aside from the bottom shelf, which I think is particle board, and the back, which is quarter-inch plywood, I believe it's made of "real wood."
• It's sturdy, and sits flat.
• It measures about 39" wide (3 feet inside the shelves) and 4' tall, with nice tall shelves.  This is huge, considering the limitations of my other bookshelf.

The bad:

• The top piece is slightly warped, so the right side has a gap between the top piece and the side piece upon which it should rest.
• At the top and bottom of the side pieces, someone put what looks like trim.  I don't know if this was to add strength, but it's a little weird.
• Between priming and painting, when it was on my porch with it's back to the sliding glass door, a gnarly gust of wind snuck in and pushed the unsuspecting shelf forwards, bashing it's upper lip against the burners of our propane burners.  You can see one of the dents in the middle of the top piece in the photo above.

The ugly:

• It's not really showing now, thank goodness!  This shelf was bright.
• The top and outer sides were bright yellow.
• The interior of the top shelf, sides, ceiling, everything (including the front edge of the shelf and side pieces), was blood red.
• The interior of the second shelf, sides, ceiling, everything, was bold blue.
• The interior of the third shelf, sides, ceiling, everything, was the bright yellow.
• The interior of the bottom shelf, sides, ceiling, everything, was a dark, grassy green.
• Semi-gloss or a higher sheen.
• I sanded a little bit, but I hope hope hope nothing chips off to show it's former non-glory.

This is the back, which was not painted, obviously.  I left it the same.  I used two coats of primer, 2 or 3 coats of paint (leftover from my kitchen cabinets), forgetting (again) that the paint is flat, and then a coat or two of clear top-coat stuff to add a bit of sheen and resilience.

It's now happily at home in our schoolroom/family room.  Oh, and it was five bucks.  The top-coat was another $7, but there's lots leftover (I couldn't find my former can of the same).

Bashed in face, warped top board...  I don't mind a bit.  Twelve linear feet for books, for five bucks???  I love it.