My Zinc Bookcase: A Faux Finishing Tutorial Part 2

If you remember from the first part of the tutorial, I recently have fallen in love with zinc furniture. My inspiration came from pieces like this from Restoration Hardware. Like this gorgeous nightstand.

Beautiful. But of course I don't have $1000 to throw at a new piece of furniture so I decided to try and create the look myself.

I finished the outside of my bookcase using my faux zinc finishing technique but the inside I had left to look like this.

Yes I know it looks great just the way it is (chuckle) but you know me, I am an overachiever.

It took me a few days to decide how to finish the inside. I kept going back and forth between fabric and the zinc look. All I knew is that I wanted it to have nice clean lines inside and I wanted to hide all the unfinished edges of the tinfoil.

I decided to go with fabric and to make sure my fabric would have clean lines I used poster board and mod podge.

First I had to cover the 2x2s that were in each corner. I cut my fabric to cover the two by two but I added 1 inch to the length. I covered the fabric with mod podge.

I folded each end over 1/2.

I pressed it over the 2x2 and moved it until it fit snugly and smoothed it out.

I did this on all of the 2x2s and then moved on to cover the sides and tops.

I first measured my sides and top and then I cut out my poster boards about 1/4" less. So if I measured 15 1/2 " by 23" I actually cut my poster board to 15 1/4" by 22 3/4".

Next I cut fabric about an inch bigger on all four sides and coated the poster board in a thin layer of mod podge.

I turned it over and smoothed the fabric out. I then wrapped the edges over and glued them down.

I then did another layer of mod podge on the back of the poster board and glued them the the sides of my bookcase until it looked like this.

I really liked how it turned out. It gave me clean lines and it added some interest to the piece. Here is another angle.

Here is a reminder of my inspiration.

I filled my shelves with things to help me get organized.

 

On the bottom shelf I put two baskets.

 I labeled the baskets with upstairs and downstairs. The kitchen is on the main floor and seems to be the gathering place for EVERYTHING in the house. This way I can throw things into the baskets as the day goes on and then take only one trip up and one trip down to put everything back. The baskets are from Ikea and I am going to do a tutorial on the tags.

On the middle shelf I have file boxes.

One thing I have struggled organizing since I have been married is mail. I have tried SO MANY different storage options but it always piles up on me. I am hoping that this bookcase will make opening my mail and then throwing away, shredding or filing right away more reasonable.These file boxes were also from Ikea.

On the top shelf I have my version of this Ballard Designs Desk Organizer.

This was the first thing I have ever built in my life. It is a little rough but I am like a proud mama when it comes to this organizer. I will share a tutorial soon on how to build one yourself.

You could easily use this technique on a existing piece of furniture but you could also build something new. You can visit Ana White's site for some great plans. You can even check here to see the kitchen furniture we built with her free plans.

I hope everyone had a great week. Did anyone else watch the royal wedding? I got together with a few friends and watched it today (thanks to a DVR). They were so cute and I loved watching them break into huge grins. I thought it was nice to see something so sweet on TV when usually it is just sad. My heart and prayers go out to those living in the areas affected by the crazy tornadoes they have been having down south.