In cased you missed the office plan and the progress on changing the floor plan, you can find them here, here and here. In short, we decided to convert the 2nd bedroom on our main floor to Slav’s office, by opening it up to the living room and gifting the closet to our bedroom.
After reversing the closet, we put up drywall to cover the open studs and closed the old doorway. Now the office has one continuous, uninterrupted wall:
This was the view from the living room to the office after we finished the drywall:
We plan to add wall-to-wall library shelves on this wall to accommodate our +1000 books:
The library shelves will also provide much needed storage for the ever-growing paperwork for Slav’s business.
We have used IKEA Billy for years in our past rental; you can see how them looked in our living room here. We liked the clean look of Billy and their functionality, so there was no brainier to use Billy in the office. IKEA had a big sale last November, specifically on Billy bookcases. We snatched five of them.
These bookcases have been patiently waiting for our attention for two and half months. It felt so great to finally put them together! #LEGOforadults
We got all our bookcases in brown ash veneer – I usually go for the birch veneer color but decided on a darker shade for a more masculine feel.
I brought the bookcase into the office to get a feel how tall I wanted them to sit. The office ceiling is 92 1/4″ tall and bookcases are only 79 1/2″. To give it a more balanced look, I decided to boost up these bookcases with a wooden base.
I popped out all the baseboard in the room to make room for the wooden base. If you decide to put your Billy cases directly on the floor, you will likely be able to leave the baseboard intact since Billy is designed to accommodate the existing baseboard.
We proceeded to build the base with 2″x4″s and attached them to the wall. The front of the frame was left open for baseboard storage.
The floor is not perfectly even, so shims were used to keep the top of the 2″x4″ base leveled.
This is how the finished 2″x4″ base looked: It consumed three studs, which are less than $10 in total.
We finished assembling all five bookcases and put them on top of the 2″x4″ base. I think they look grand.
I cannot wait to load them with books and decor! But first, we have to move some electrical behind the bookcases, and secure the bookcases to the wall. We plan to tackle the electrical and trims this weekend, and hopefully unpack the books. Stay tuned, friends!
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