More organizing...the bookcases

Our bookcases have been SO useful for us, but since getting them a little under 2 years ago, they've been organized, yet very unsightly. They were purposed for storing dozens of books and resource guides, definitely not for decoration or appearance. I wish I would have taken a "before" picture to make myself feel even more accomplished for having pulled this off because the transformation is amazing to me. I did take a before picture of a few shelves, just to get the idea of the hodge podge of stuff that was on there. (notice there's Scotch Guard, old journals, index cards, boxes, catalogs, a scale, really random stuff) I bought a few baskets with a store credit at Ross, but everything else is from elsewhere in the house. I'm proud to announce that I did this little project for $6.20!!!

So here's what got me started: in my quest to declutter and streamline things in our house, I decided to take my many, many pre-2002, pre-digital camera photo albums (not to be confused with my scrapbooks) and move them into my craft room closet. Pictures stored where I scrapbook...makes sense. The biggest reason they were in the office bookcases before was because we had the room and they fit well. Again, functionality. They are all mismatched, various sizes, and are not attractive to look at, so into the closet they went. Unfortunately, my craft room closet door is always open, so I still see them.

I googled "decorating bookcases" (because I'm design-challenged sometimes and I found myself among piles and piles of books, seperating them by category, but not knowing where to go from there) and I came up with tips on the HGTV site and the DIY site. (click on the links to see the tips) The coolest tip I found was to cover mismatched photo albums with patterned contact paper to give them a uniform look. Check out the before and after pictures below...