re-imagined furniture {from 'not so pretty' to cute}

I love to repurpose furniture, whether it’s new or old. {Frankly, I have an obsession for painting furniture, but this is a first with regards to cutting things apart and making it different} This open-backed bookcase or etegere as the french say {he is named after a French man afterall...} in Luc’s room is a complete repurpose or re-imagine if you will. It started out as a plastic-y brown “wood” L-shaped tv stand/shelves that Jeff’s parents had when he was growing up. He had it when I met him along with other hand-me-downs in his bachelor pad. It was one of the few things we have had all these years, since it served as storage shelving in our basement. Who can’t use more storage, right? I had planned on taking a ‘before’ picture before it was deconstructed, but one early Saturday morning in September Jeff was up sawing away and started to paint it before I even got downstairs for the day. I was able to snap a picture of one of the spindles so you can see what we started with.

{ahhh, the power of paint}

This idea came to me one night when I was looking at a magazine and admiring a turned leg open-backed bookcase. I am always thinking about how to improve things and make them beautiful...then it dawned on me that we had this L-shaped piece downstairs that Jeff could saw off the ends of the bottom two shelves that extended to make the single tower and give us the same look in the nursery.



So cute, right???
I think it might be my favorite thing in the nursery {besides the sweet occupant of this room, of course}. Most everything else is cream or neutrals so this really gives a punch of color while still keeping the room soothing and not jarring. And I can take no credit for the color idea {I probably would of painted it something neutral even though I did want some orange in the room}. When I told Jeff my idea for this and the room’s color scheme, it was his idea to paint it orange. I immediately liked that idea!

See that cute egg on the top? That’s a new piggy bank we got from Jeff’s mom with money she gave him for Christmas {it’s very appropriate since she is a saver}. It’s so stinkin cute…it’s a “Nest Egg” and has a little saying, “no matter how big or small my dreams, this Nest Egg will help save for them all”.


So, next time you are thinking you want or need something in your house, shop your own house first and see what you can’t re-imagine instead, you might surprise yourself. I would of never used the piece as it was but with some ingenuity…things can turn out so much better!

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Jennifer Rizzo-Fabulously Creative 
Craftberry Bush-Inspiration Gallery