DIY Painted Tribal Bookcase

If you have been following along on Instagram and Facebook, then you saw the little sneak peeks that I posted last weekend of the fun and crazy DIY project I have been working on. This was my first time painting furniture and working with power tools so bear with me and come along for the ride of my DIY painted tribal bookcase project!

I have been on the hunt for a while now for a really nice bookcase, but I just couldn't find one that had the details I wanted. I was looking for more than just your standard bookcase. 

That's when, at about the six local thrift store location we went to, my husband spotted this little gem. I was in love, look at how cute she is with the little scroll detail at the top and bottom and the shelf bar across the top. 

So the next thing to do after finally finding the perfect bookcase was to gather up some supplies.

• Behr Paint in Spirited Green, Purple Paradise, and Charm
• 3M Pro Grade Sand Paper #80 (Coarse)
• ScotchBlue™ Painter's Tape

I decided on the mint color after seeing this gorgeous night stand from Making Home Base, isn't she gorgeous! 

I was sent the ScotchBlue™ Painter's Tape from a PR company along with a few inspiration photos of fun Spring DIY projects and fell in love with this idea from Dream Green DIY, but more on that later though first we have to talk about sanding!

Luckily my husband was already equipped with a Black & Decker® power sander, he's a pretty handy guy to have around and he's all mine ladies! 

Wow, sanding is not fun, but my husband insisted that the nasty stain on the bookcase needed it before we moved on to painting. There is paint out there you can use to skip this step called chalk paint, which I have seen a lot of DIY bloggers use. However, I didn't see any at our local Home Depot so sanding was a must. Also, after sanding make sure to wipe down your furniture with a wet and dry cloth before painting. 

So, remember the charming details that I loved about my bookcase? Well I kept looking at her and wasn't so sure about a few things after others suggested that the scroll was a little dated looking. I needed to see what it actually looked like with a few items on the shelves and after toying with a few looks I finally settled on keeping the scroll but removing the shelf bar. When we removed the bar there were holes in the top shelf for the dowels, so that's when my handy husband grabbed wood putty to fill in the holes before sanding over them. 

THEN IT WAS FINALLY TIME TO PAINT!!! 

Look how pretty! I just love this color, what about you? Is mint a color you would use in your home or on furniture? 

One thing I learned from Monica and Jess of East Coast Creative blog that I took to heart was to not be afraid to try and not to be afraid to fail. There are so many awesome bookcases out there with gorgeous painted shelves, but the color palette I chose just wasn't working together. 

Note: We had already started to paint over the "Charm" purple paint when I realized I should take a photo of the fail!

So after cleaning her up and giving her two to three coats of the Spirited Green paint and letting her dry over night, it was time to figure out what design I wanted to create with the ScotchBlue™ painter's tape. 

After staring at the tribal background on my cell phone for a good minute or two this cool idea popped in my head of what to create.

But first I had to head back to Home Depot to pick up a few other colors, I really love these little sample jars! The two other colors I used along with the Purple Paradise were Bali Bliss and Jackfruit (such fun names!). 

The ScotchBlue™ painter's tape was pretty wide, so to get the triangle design look I wanted I had to cut each piece of tape in half (split down the middle). This was not a quick task, and at first I taped one triangle design, painted it, then laid out the tape for the next one. That's when a light bulb went on in my head and I realized I should tape out each design then paint them all at once! 

As you can see I didn't like the light purple on the inside of the shelves, but the darker purple (Purple Paradise) was a great color to add to the bottom feet. Although for some reason in this photo it looks like a different tint ( in Pic Monkey it wasn't this color but when I uploaded it to blogger it changed!). 

I'm so happy with the way she turned out; the mint, the pop of purple at the bottom, and the tribal design on the side, it's just a fun piece. Well, what do you guys think? 

I hope my DIY painted tribal bookcase inspires you to have fun with color, use power tools for the first time, and try something you have always wanted to do before. Don't be afraid to fail! 

Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend!

PS, I'm linking up at The 36th Avenue for Desiree's Best DIY Projects and Recipes Party!