Upgrading a Cheap Bookshelf

Even before we had kids, our house has always been teeming with books. Unfortunately, nice looking bookshelves are expensive–especially if you want to add several to a room.

In this tutorial, I will show you how I quickly upgraded some inexpensive Walmart bookshelves.

If you find this idea helpful, I'd appreciate your like or your vote in the "Furniture Hack" contest I've entered. :)

This is a quick project, so let's get building!

To get things going, you need to assembled the store-bought bookshelf. In my situation, low bookshelves worked best, but you can do this with any size of bookshelves. I bought three, took them home, and put them together according to the instructions provided in the box.

Next, you need to pick out some moulding. I went with this 3" fluted moulding from Home Depot that came in 8ft lengths, and I also purchased a rosettes for each corner (you might want to do six for each bookcase if you're doing a tall bookcase). Not only do these rosette's look great, but they also keep you from having to cut angles at the corners.

Now that we've got the stuff, let's put this together!

To make sure that everything fits well, you'll want to start with affixing the rosettes to the corners of the bookshelves. You'll want to make sure that these are glued down and lined up flush with the outside edges. All the overlap should be towards the inside of the bookcase.*

Use some carefully placed finishing nails to hold the rosettes tightly to the bookcase.

Once all four corners are in place, you can measure and the moulding to fit each of the sides.

If your moulding doesn't come pre-painted, you'll want to paint it and let it dry before proceeding.

Next, install the moulding to each of the sides, in the same way that you added the rosettes. Begin with glue, then tack down with finishing nails.

* Note: Since we wanted two of the bookcase to set side-by-side and look
like a united bookcase, I let the moulding on one side overlap two bookcases. Just make sure that you only attach this moulding to one bookcase, or you're going to have a difficult time moving this around without breaking something.

Once the glue dries, you're all set to move your bookshelf into place.

Great work! You've seriously upgraded your bookshelves, and now you have room for more books!

If you find this idea helpful, I'd appreciate your like or your vote in the "Furniture Hack" contest I've entered. And if you build your own, I'd love to see your creation in the comments below!