lighten up: bookshelf backdrop

Ok, two things to tell you:

One, after living in this house for two months, I almost have the living room complete. Cue the Hallelujah chorus.

Two, I have had a recent obsession with brightening

things up. I don't know why, but I want everything in my house to be white, white, white. Light, light, light.

In our living room, I have a shelf that holds the collection of knicky-knacky things that I love too much not to display. A pair of Korean ducks that a friend gave us as a wedding gift while he was teaching in South Korea. An antique bird cage that my mom bought me for my birthday. Hand-bound family recipes (OLD ones) from The Boy's aunt. Our wedding verse, written in Chinese, from my maid of honor while she was living overseas. Okay, maybe it's a shelf for our international wedding gifts, but whatevs. You get the general idea.

The problem is that most everything on the shelf is dark and wooden. And the shelf is dark and wooden. And I felt depressed when I looked in that corner because you CAN'T SEE ANYTHING. Darkness...uuuggghhh, I hate you.

This picture may not look that bad, but it really is. It was sad. So what's a girl to do? I'm all about sprucing things up, but sometimes I don't want it to be too permanent in case I change my mind later, which I almost certainly will. In that case, paint wouldn't do. Fabric? Only I didn't want to glue/staple it on, because of that whole "nothing too permanent" rule. And then I found a piece of posterboard. Cha-ching! Perfect.

I just cut the posterboard to the exact size of the inside of the bookshelf, covered it with some fabric and glued the edges down along the back (xoxo spray craft glue!). Then I inserted it into my bookshelf. The individual shelves hold it against the back, so there's no need to attach it. Nifty, eh?

Much better. Also - totally by accident, the fabric is almost identical to the wall color. I wasn't sure if I'd like that, but it flows so much better. Your eye doesn't get caught on a busy fabric or a contrasting paint color, it just shows off my beauties!