‘Painting’ the back of bookshelves

You’ve probably got turkey on the brain like I do, but I wanted to share one quick way to change up your bookshelves, especially if you’ll be decorating them for Christmas anyway.

My old secretary is one of my favorite things, but all that white was a little … flat. So I bought a sheet of foam core and a couple bottles of craft paint, cut the board into strips that would easily fit at the back of each shelf, painted green on one side of each piece and a warm gray on the other, and slapped those babies in the secretary. It makes a huge difference in the warmth of the vignette.

Here’s the green:

And the gray:

I had the gray sides showing all fall, but now that Christmas is almost here, I turned them over so the green shows—so much easier (and cheaper and less permanent) than actually painting the back of a bookcase.

If your foam-core strips don’t want to stand up on their own, just use some painter’s-tape pillows to keep them in place.

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you gobble ‘til you wobble. I’ll be in my stretchy pants all weekend. •