Jourdan Fairchild — Bookshelf Wall, Part 1: Design plans📚✨

We first dreamed up the idea of these shelves during a date night back in March (wait—you don’t draw construction plans when you’re a few cocktails deep?). First, let me paint the picture of this living room today. It’s a lovely rectangular-shaped space just to the right of the front entryway. Right around 5pm, when the setting sun begins streaming in, the gloss stripes I painted a few months ago glimmer in the light. There’s honestly no better spot in the house at that very moment. Im the near future, I picture adults lounging with cocktails having some glorious uninterrupted conversations while the kids play out back. Fast forward to December, and I can see our Christmas tree nestled against the front window.

Here’s the thing though: the room is lacking in architecture. Unlike the dining room, the walls have no moulding. And the fireplace is nice enough, but the interior style is very stuck in the 80's (black marble, bright fake brass…it won’t be like this forever, promise). So a full wall of built-in bookshelves will give it that cozy, custom library feeling we think it very much needs. If you noticed, it’s the only wall I didn’t paint the high-gloss stripes because I knew we’d be building these shelves.

So now that we’re mostly wrapped up in Sloane’s room with her window seat (and anxiously awaiting her curtains and bedding), we’ve set our sites on these bookshelves. You should also know that by sharing these design “plans,” we’re in no way declaring they are rigid and set in stone. Because we do all of the work ourselves, we’re making decisions slowly and thoughtfully. Which means the process takes longer, but we can adjust and pivot all the way until the end. Weeeee. For instance, we haven’t fully landed on sconces or exact trim, but since the early framing and electrical steps will take a while, I’m not worried. If you build it, the decisions will come.

ALSO! I believe I really missed some content collecting and sharing opportunities with Sloane’s window seat, and I don’t want to make that mistake this time. So I’ll be sharing more of the nitty gritty as we work. We’ve broken down this project into 9 major parts, and that’s how I’ll be sharing it:

1) Design
2) Framing
3) Electrical
4) Facing + Arches
5) Shelving
6) Trim
7) Staining + Painting
8) Finishing touches
9) Decoration

If there’s a part that bores you or you never plan on attempting yourself, no worries. Skip it! Eventually there will be something for everyone.