With the bookcases and bases built and secured to the walls, they were finally ready for the magic to happen… with trim! I took a trip to Kuiken Brothers, a local millwork shop which has a large selection of premium trim options. With most DIYs, I’m pretty comfortable rolling up my sleeves and figuring thing out as a I go. For whatever reason, trim was intimidating to me… I couldn’t quite figure out what type of trim would be best for various aspects of this project and I wasn’t sure of how to secure it without the particleboard just ripping off over time.
It was so helpful to speak with an expert at Kuiken! The rep quickly pointed me towards cost effective options and showed me the difference between crown molding that needs to be attached to wall + ceiling vs. a flat application like I would need for the bookcase (I definitely would have purchased and used the wrong kind if I tried to do this on my own). The other nice perk of this store is that they have 12” samples that you can take home… for free!
To install, I had to channel my high school self to figure out the wacky angles of the corner bookcase and do a little in the moment hacking with shims to get everything to be flush. If you’re attempting a Billy hack on a straight wall instead of a corner, it will be 10000% easier. I mainly used a combo of existing baseboards; crown molding; and 2″ flat trim. It was so exciting to see this finally all trimmed out! I’ve never cut crown molding before – but now that I’ve done it, I feel like I can do a whole room pretty easily because it’ll be normal 45-degree angles instead this crazy bookcase!
Today was a BIG paint day. My husband painted the room and it was amazing to come home and see it transformed! It was previously Benjamin Moore Gray Owl which I loved – but I’m starting to be done with all the gray in my house. I chose Benjamin Moore Simply White which I also love and have used before. It’s a very clean, creamy white. I just wrapped up priming about 40% of the bookcase with the Zinsser BIN Shellac-based primer tinted dark (you can have the store tint it to any paint color — it will be very very light but still a step towards your final color instead of white). It’s SO GREAT to see color on this bookcase after all these weeks of building, planning, and trimming. I still have to finish priming tomorrow… and starting to paint it… but it is SO. CLOSE. to being done!!!
