IKEA Hack: Billy Bookcase, Harris Style

Jennifer is writing this post due to the fact that Wes knew he would geek out and get way too wordy.  Pictures were curated by Wes, though.

Here's a before and after of our bookcase.

Wes became intimately acquainted with sketch-up.

Pretty accurate and amazing.

Then, he added blue and lights in sketch-up.  Wes claims that the modeling reduces mistakes and trips to Lowes.  I have my doubts.

There was a lot of painting, mudding, and sanding.  Like, SO much.  We learned a lot about how important mudding and caulking is.  Our friends, the Russell's, sacrificed Aaron's time and Jamie's patience :) during much of the building of this.

Finally done!  Right?

Nope.  Not even close.  Wes built it modular so he could relocate it upstairs.  Here's some pics of that delicate process.

Back upstairs!  More mudding, caulking, sanding, and painting.

Wes spent almost as much time researching LEDs and transformers as he did playing...I mean working with sketch-up.

Some of the how-to pictures with LEDs.  (Wes mumbled something to me about mentioning to you how he converted ac voltage to dc and wiring in a remote control function.) 

More how-to pictures.  Wes is very proud and excited about this lighting affect.

Finally!  Finished!  For real...except waiting three weeks for the wax to cure before we loaded it up with books.

Seriously, though, I love it so much.  It makes me so happy and really adds something to our loft library.  Certainly, our kids will be readers growing up with this 10 feet from their bedroom doorways, right?