Alley Transformation - Bookshelf

This one, i am excited about.  

Far too often, Neil (he's the husband) and I will drive up and down the back alleys in our neighborhood to see what people are throwing away.   We live in a fairly well to do neighborhood, and people keep throwing away perfectly good things.  But mostly, people are throwing away crap.  And that is where things get fun.  

This bookshelf was definitely in the "crap" category.

It swayed back and forth.  It was cracked and chipped.  The brass feet were covered in paint.  It was a mess.  Neil wasn't into it, but i had a vision.  This is exciting because i am kind of a bit visionless these days.  Neil is a designer and he doesn't spend all day with a toddler so his brain still forms thoughts of value.  Mine just farts most of the time.  

We went to Home Depot and purchased three things:  paint, brass cleaner, and a particle board back.  The idea was that the back would stabilize the bookshelf and remove some of that unnerving swaying motion.   

I used TSP to clean it, Neil screwed on the back, and i polished the brass feet and caulked the seams.  Neil painted.  Neil painted into the night because there was a chance of rain the next day and we needed to get everything done pronto-like.

As you see, we used spray paint.  It's so easy to work with but there is no way in hell that piece was coming in the house to dry.  So we crafted the most ridiculous tent out of another bookshelf, a ladder, and a tarp.  We went to sleep proud.  And when i woke up in the morning and ran out there like a kid on Christmas morning, i saw that we let the sprinklers run overnight and the bookshelf was soaked.   See?  My brain makes farts.  ALL the fucking time.

The sun came out and we dried it off.  My daughter, O, wanted to help us.  but first she had to take care of something.  

KIDS ARE SO AWESOME AND HELPFUL.

So here it is, O's brand new bookshelf.   What dragged me into this whole ordeal to begin with is how there is that middle section for extra tall books.  O's got this one dinosaur book that just never fit anywhere.  A smart and more efficient mom would have probably just snuck the dinosaur book out of the house under the cover of night and left the book in the alley for some poor sucker to pick up.  But not me.   My brain farted out this much easier plan.  Dig the final product.

 Is the yellow too much?  Don't answer that.