Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Fois Bois Book Case - the eternal diy project

Whew. This project. I thought it was going to take a Saturday afternoon - and it ended up taking two weeks. Whoops. 

I started with a basic bookcase that my dad made when I was about a year old. I took it with me to college and painted it yellow, which does not fit in with my current decorating scheme.

It all began with stripping the yellow paint.

stripping the yellow paint

After spending a million hours scraping old paint off while crying and sweating, it was ready for the new coat of paint. I painted the whole thing a basic light brown. I believe it is called "Hazelnut."

After the Hazelnut was all dry, I drew a basic fois bois pattern on a piece of contact paper and then started cutting. I didn't bother using any "negative" space in my drawing - I just spaced the contact paper out on the bookcase. This made for a nice stencil.

the contact paper "stencil"

Then I painted two coats of dark brown paint, and topped the whole thing with a matte sealer. It probably would have been faster to use spray paint - but it is ILLEGAL in Chicago. Lame. 

pretty much finished

And finally, two weeks later, here it is in my entry way (note the mail basket - very helpful!):

finally in place!

Only took two weeks. Sigh. 

3 comments :

  1. very fancy. would you like the other one to "fois bois"?
    Take another look at my painting and guess again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. srsly kinda just fell in love with your little bookcase.

    ReplyDelete

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