Last week, I showed you the small reading nook/blog command center I situated in a corner of our family room. This week, the family room quest continues, as we try to eek critical storage from our bookshelf.

As much as I would have loved to just "style" this bookshelf, perhaps with flowers, quirky sculptures and maybe even a couple books, it just wasn't practical for our situation. Here at casa de us, we have lots of books - and a bunch of other stuff that needs storing, too, like my burgeoning craft supply. The key, to me, was to use this bookshelf like a storage closet, but prettily enough to be the first thing you see when you enter the family room.

First things first: organization. I raided my collection of organizing stuff, including magazine files, baskets, jars, some clear plastic paint containers and even a dish organizer, and sorted things into respective containers.

Here's my rough draft, so to speak. Once I made sure everything I wanted to store fits, I could make changes to the containers themselves, like spray painting, recovering boxes, and rebacking the shelves.

I used a can of gold spray paint to transform a bunch of my organization containers. Yeah, I did it on my fire escape, and no, I'm not proud.

What you see there is one cabinet organizer (designed for plates and mugs and such, like this one), a candle plate from Ikea for maybe $4, and three magazine files from the Target $1 Spot. I also added one more Target dollar basket before it was all said and done. Within my little spray paint zone, I primed the pieces and then covered them with about four light coats of gold spray paint. If you're curious, I used a whole can plus a little of a second of gold.

As far as re-backing the shelves, you can also see that the bookshelves in the rough draft are backed with, on top, some black and white graphic paper (which you can also see here in the Black, White & Red All Over bedroom look). On the bottom, there's no backing; I was seeing which I liked better. It turned out neither: I wanted something lighter, so I went as light as you can go - with plain white contact paper.

Here you can see where that little (now) gold candle plate landed - as a topper for plant-stand-turned-table-turned-back-to-plant-stand in my reading nook. For now, I dig it.

I had all the storage containers you see here, except the clear plastic paint gallon containers, which are $1 at the Target $1 Spot right now. I didn't paint their lids and handles gold - it seemed like a hassle - and I don't mind a little metal mixing, anyway.

Then there are the books themselves. We don't only have gold-ish, white and black books, but those are the ones that were left here after I'd moved the rainbow ones to the Expedit that holds our TV (to the right of this picture). They're what inspired the rest of the gold, actually. And no, I couldn't help myself: I had to ombre them.

Bookshelf with ombre books, lots of gold, and some storage.

Before I took over the bookshelf for my craft storage, I was trying to cram it all into a couple of stacking boxes by my desk. It was a total failure, with massive spillover that threatened to take over our entire apartment, and no easy way to access anything or put anything away, which is a surefire recipe for disaster. I am so much happier with this. No, it's not the most beautifully-styled bookshelf ever, but it as actually useful, and I think you have to give it points for that.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!