If you are looking to add more colour, depth and interest to a room in your house, have you thought about painting inside a bookcase or within shelving? This was a small DIY project that I undertook recently and I was so happy with the end result!

It’s been a good few years since I created the built-in bookcase from two cheap IKEA Billy’s in my sitting room. Building this bookcase hack saved me a lot of money and it has been so functional, giving us a lot of extra storage room for books, records and decorative items.

When I last decorated this space, I colour-drenched the bookcase in the same stone brown shade I painted the walls. However, wanting to add a bit more visual interest and layering into this room, I decided on a whim that I was going to paint the bookcase in Cordoba - a deep oxblood/blackberry shade by Little Greene Paint Company. I had a tin left over from a previous project (where I painted some wooden chairs in my dining room) and I loved the colour, so I got to work.

The initial plan was to paint the entire bookcase, but I was concerned that the built-in would feel disjointed from the rest of the space being a completely different hue. After lightly abrading the shelves in order for the new paint to adhere, I started painting the inside of the bookcase first. Once I had done one side, I realised that I could get all the impact of the stronger colour just by having the interior painted. If I left the outside frame the stone brown shade, the bookcase would still feel like a cohesive part of the room.

*On the first coat I realised I should stick to just the inside.*

To confirm that my idea was the right thing to do, I headed straight over to Pinterest to get some inspiration from others who had done the same thing. Luckily, I found some excellent inspirational images that convinced me that just painting the back of the bookcase was the right thing to do.

After doing both internal sides, I touched up any marks on the outside area and left the paint a few days to cure before placing back my white ceramics. I was delighted at how my decorative items now popped out against the darker background and just how good the bookcase looked being two-tone. The shelving gave a lot of visual interest being a rich shade, whilst the colour just being on the inside didn’t feel overpowering. The room didn’t feel as bland as before and gave the room a feeling of more depth.

My top tip for a project like this is to get some good low-pile rollers for cabinet painting and have on hand some very small artist paint brushes to create a distinct line between the corners and edges of the bookcase where the two colours meet.

What do you think of this painting idea? Would you give it a go in your own home?

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