Giving the bookcases gingerbread flair: Part 1

When we moved in the bookcases in the room where already in situ. They’re built in and were used to store the files of the doctor who owned our home and had his office in this room. I had thought that I would remove them originally, but seeing open shelving on pinterest helped me to change my mind. Nevertheless I didn’t want them all to be open plan, as I wanted to hide cans and other uglies away.

Regular readers will know that we had a wardrobe that had warped. The curved top was used here….

and the intricate sides here. Well the central, mirrored door I planned to use on these bookcases.

I had orginally thought to hang the door on hinges, but the more I thought of it the more I realised that this would probably end in the weight causing any hinges to split the wood of the bookcase. I needed to bear the load of the weight in some practical way.

I then came up with the idea of making it into a sliding door. There are lots of examples of this on Pinterest, with the weight of the door being supported on coaster wheels. There were two problems with this. I didn’t think a barn door look would go well with how the kitchen was developing, having more of a French provincial look, and also the door has an arched top. That means the flatter areas, where the equipment for hanging the door at the top would need to be, would be lower than the top of the arch.

I’ve been mulling over just how to do it when I found these sides of an old armoire and realised if they were added to the side of the mirror door the eyelets could be fixed to these. The strut sides already had an indentation that allowed them to not only fit snugly, overlapping the front and side of the door, but also at the top.

I spray painted the sides with primer. I often say it, but dealing with salvaged wood has taught me the hard way to be wary of bleeding varnish, even with chalk paint. I then glued the first side in place, leaving them over night before starting on the second one.

When I did glue the second one I laid it flat and added this 1/4 round to the bottom at the same time. I just elevated the door on two bits of wood so I could do them both at once. The 1/4 round is to add depth to the base of the board so I could attach coasters to it so that it would roll along. You’ll notice in this picture how the side struts go beyond the base of the mirror. I was happy with this as they are just a little shorter than the length of the door + wheels, so they will disguise them from side views when it’s all in situ.

I needed to add height to the door so that the rail it would slide on was in line with the top shelf. I had another decorative cupboard top so added this, and then two cupboard knobs that would have large eyelets screwed into them. These were all screwed and glued in place.

Then I took two decorative pieces and used them to fill some of the space between the original mirror and the new top as it was looking a bit thrown together. You can see the top of the door after it’s been hung here, although the cupboard itself needs more work at this stage so please ignore it’s current appearance.

I filled gaps with acrylic before painting the door in chalk paint.

To hang the door was a case of trial and error. I needed to have a pole for the eyelets to run along, and one the would be sturdy enough to hold the weight of the door. I also wanted to create a sort of lip to keep the door running in one straight line. I’ll go into the lip in part two. However in the end I ended up using a curtain rail like this one, but I also used a long, metal curtain pole and ran this over the two sections of this extendable pole to ensure that it wouldn’t get caught were the smaller met the larger pole. You can see I also had to change the position of the eyelets to the top of the arch where they were more secure.

I haven’t finished painting with chalk paint and sanding yet, as you can see. There is a lot more gingerbread style detail and I’ll go into how I finished the book cases off in my next post. See you then!