Tiffany Blue Bookshelf

After 20 years of moving around with the Army, my hubby is retiring. That’s great news, but it means it’s time to consolidate all of the furniture finds we’ve had throughout our marriage.

We have a mix of 1950-era Louis XV furniture from France, Old Americana antiques, old furniture from when we were kids (that’s not old in a good, antique way), and just other stuff that has piled up over the years. It’s hard to go through it all and decide what we can keep and what we can donate, but some really has to go.

This bookshelf is one of the pieces I’m proud of. The center bottom is an old dresser that was either handed down to us or that we bought at an auction in the 90s…I can’t remember. I do remember that it was painted pink at one time.

The shelves were natural wood kits that I bought from Lowes when my husband was away in Korea. It’s one of the first times I snuck into his tools to see how dangerous I could be. Turns out, I’m pretty dangerous (and now addicted).

I originally painted everything cream, sanded the edges and rubbed it all down with Pecan-colored stain. It stayed that way for nearly a decade. Now that we’ve moved, I’m proud to say that this piece made the cut and will live happily ever after in our office. But I was tired of the boring cream.

I was thinking of using Tiffany Blue in a guest bedroom, but when I came across this rug at Cost Plus World Market, I knew the pop of blue was going to dress up my favorite bookshelf instead.

I brought the Tiffany box to Home Depot. (Not sure why I’ve held onto the box all these years. My sister-in-law gave her bridesmaids Tiffany earrings and it’s the only Tiffany thing I own…so I guess I just had to keep the box)…funny what you find when you move.  Anyway, the paint expert scanned the box and came up with this code: Colorant-0Z-384^th, AXL-0-85, DL-0-108, EL-0-92. It was spot on. I chose a high-gloss acrylic.

I painted the outer edges of the shelves.

I was so nervous because I was painting on our new hardwood floors, and I am a total klutz! Good thing my husband wasn’t home.

I went back and forth with the drawers. I wasn’t sure whether to keep them cream or paint them blue. I did a mock-up using Photoshop and asked my Facebook fans what they thought. They, too, were mixed.

Then, I went to Anthropologie and found some drawer knobs that were the exact same color blue. Jackpot!

I kept the drawers cream and accented them with these knobs. I’m not sure what I’m going to do for the pulls yet, but these old ones work for now.

As a final step, I sanded the shelves with 100-grit sandpaper. I just rubbed the edges until the old cream paint (and even some of the pink) showed through. Then, to warm up the overall color, I rubbed the blue paint down with natural-colored stain. In hindsight, I probably should have chosen a color one shade darker because I don’t see the natural too much, but I didn’t want to totally cover the blue.

The shelves turned out great, especially next to the new rug. Now it’s time to give my collection of cookbooks and old cooking magazines a final home.