Playroom shelves

My first try at the “IKEA hack” built-in approach. The base is five 31 1/2 × 11 × 41 3/4” Ikea Billy bookcases plus four 15 3/4 × 11 × 41 3/4” narrow ones, lined up against the wall to form a continuous run. Baltic birch plywood on the top and the exposed sides ties them together visually, and trim boards around the edges give it the built-in look.

Primed with Zinsser B-I-N shellac-based primer and topcoated with the same Benjamin Moore Aura that’s on the surrounding wall. Painting cabinets isn’t my strong suit yet — I don’t know if there’s a more durable cabinet-specific finish I should have used.

The shelves are holding a lot of books, board games, and toys. The IKEA-hack approach wasn’t actually the time-saver I expected — once you add the plywood top, the side panels, and the trim, you’ve done most of a from-scratch built-in anyway. That’s why I went straight to scratch-built for the walk-in closet right after this.