Bookshelves and window seat in the nursery

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So I told you when I started this project I planned to up-cycle the bead board from our master bedroom, but it didn't work out how I planned.  Well...I went back to the drawing board and decided to go for something that would require even more work and planning.  Because I'm 8 months pregnant and nesting (which, as Fancy Nancy would say, is a fancy word for crazy).

I had been sitting on the idea that I wanted some more storage in the house and that this bedroom would be the perfect place for it. I wanted to build (or install pre-made) bookshelves on both sides of the window and then put a bench seat in between that would double as a toy box and a window seat. The only thing that had been stopping me was the cost.  But the other day, I found out I have money coming from an unclaimed paycheck from like 9 years ago through the website http://www.mine.utah.gov.  If you're in Utah, you should do a search on your name.  Who knows? You may have a small fortune waiting for you!

Mine wasn't a small fortune.  Only about $85.  But it was enough to pay for most of the cost of this project.  AND my Dad was kind enough to offer his help in making it a reality, so I jumped.

At first I thought it might be easiest (though not necessarily cheapest) to install pre-made bookshelves like this DIYer did.------------>
As pregnant as I am, this seemed like it might be the best way to go.

Then I measured the wall to find out how wide my pre-made bookshelves might need to be. Oy.

The window in the room isn't in the middle! The right side is three inches wider than the left.  If I put pre-made bookshelves in there, there would be a weird gap on one side.

So that left building them myself (with a little help from my awesome dad, of course).

I found this tutorial on Home Depot's website on how to install your own bookshelves, and it looked easy enough.  My dad was going to come up and spend the whole day helping, so I was optimistic that we could get the project completed, or at least mostly done, before he went home.

You can laugh now.  That so didn't happen.

This, of course, is mostly the fault of my not being able to do something simply.  EVER.  Remember that bead board that I didn't want to waste?  Well, I figured out that I had just enough of it to go behind the bookshelves and to be the facing on the window seat.  I thought it was a perfect, easy way to use it.

Don't get me wrong.  It looks beautiful in the finished product.  But this is how far we got before my dad had to leave:

Yes, that's right.  We only got the bead board up for the bookshelf backing.  In our defense, we also cut the supporting boards for the shelves to size and drilled all the holes in them.  But we didn't get even a part of the actual shelves installed.

Here are some more pictures of the room pre-bookshelves. (Do you like the colors?  I LOVE them!)

I was a little worried about the joints being so visible between the sheets of bead board, so I took some drywall spackle (if I had a do-over, I would use caulking instead), and put it in all the cracks and then painted over it.  It looked much better afterward.

A few days later, I was able to actually construct the shelves and install them. (Can you see in the picture below how much better the bead board joints look?)

This part was about as easy as I thought it would be based on the tutorial (and the size of my belly).

A few days after that, I decided to tackle the bench seat.  I was going to just build it from the ground until my  dear husband pointed out that the only heat vent in the room would be directly underneath it.  My dad had the brilliant idea to put the bench on feet so the heat could come out underneath the bench, so I went with that idea.

 I got this far before I realized I had only gotten two long boards instead of four (I need another two for the top of the bench).

Before I finished the bench, I had to make three more trips to Home Depot for things I ran out of or forgot.  So annoying! But I finally finished the seat today (minus the lid being hinged--because I forgot to buy hinges--Home Depot, here I come again!), and will work on finishing everything as soon as I can.  I have a feeling this baby is coming early, so I need to get this project done so she will have a place to sleep!

I'll post more picture as soon as the project is finished.  Check back soon!