Not all older homes are full of charming details. At Hilary and Dan Delgadillo’s 1950s Cape Cod, in Somerset, New Jersey, the ho-hum living room lacked architectural character. So Hilary decided to add her own by flanking the window with built-in bookcases. After months of scouring Craigslist for used furniture to incorporate into the design, she found the perfect fit: two solid-pine units with open shelves as well as closed cabinets, a perfect built-in storage fit. Dentil molding, a scalloped valance, and a particleboard back dated the pieces, so she removed them before sanding the units and painting them white. Dan used plywood to build three-sided boxes to extend the height of both shelf units, patching in pieces for the face frame and a false wall that extends the units’ width. Wrapping the top and bottom with crown and base molding make them look built-in. Finally, Hilary painted the wall behind the shelves a nautical blue—befitting a Cape. “I love that we have display space that gives the house character,” she says. “Plus, the shelves look like they’ve been here forever.”
The Project Tally
• Snagged a pair of solid-pine bookcases online $100
• Modernized the pieces by removing the dentil molding, scalloped valance, and back panel $0
• Extended the height and width of the units with plywood $20
• Wrapped the top and base of the units with molding for a built-in look $30
• Sanded, primed, and painted the assembly white $30
• Added color to the wall behind the shelves with navy-blue “oops” paint from the hardware store, and installed new acrylic knobs $17
Total: $197
Pro Tip: Tommy, a This Old House general contractor, cautions against using particle board bookcases as a starting point for built-in projects: “I’m not thrilled with particle board. It can sag over time and I really don’t like the cardboard back.” Opting for solid-pine bookcases, like the ones snagged here, gives you a much sturdier foundation that will hold up for years.
The key to making stock bookcases look custom is in the trim details. As one This Old House project demonstrated, “the idea of built-in bookcases is to make them look custom. So you wanna tie in the baseboard, for example, right across the front” and add a face frame to fill any gaps between units or between the units and the wall. That’s exactly what wrapping the top and base with molding achieves here—it visually connects the bookcases to the room’s existing trim.
