Corners of my home: Upcycled

Do you like my latest upcycling project? It's only taken me - ooh - 6 months, but that's ok, it's done now and I am really, really happy with it!

Back in September, I saw an unremarkable, rather scruffy bookcase in our local charity shop for £8, I had been looking for something to fill a space in my kitchen that would actually be useful, rather than a space where junk collected, and this seemed promising. I brought it home, stuck it in the space, and immediately it became a place to store junk. But I had big ideas for it, and they wafted around in my mind. I wanted something bright and colourful - somewhere accessible to store dishes. Finally in those couple of weeks leading up to Christmas - you know, when there's nothing much going on, I cleared the junk from it and sanded it down.

Then I gave it a coat of duck egg blue gloss. I made a good job of it too.  I love duck egg blue, and I thought it would look perfect in my kitchen. But there was something not right. It was too pale - bland even. It didn't give me that pop of colour that I expected. And then, Christmas preparations became the focus, and the shelf unit got pushed back against the wall, and filled up with bits and pieces once again.

Then, after the holidays were over, I took a trip to the paint store for some poppin' turquoise paint. That's more like it - but still something missing. Ah - Ebay to the rescue.

Half a roll of 1960s vintage  kitchen wallpaper duly arrived in the mail. I love this - it reminds me of the kitchens of my childhood. Lots of measuring, some precise cutting and a bottle of mod podge  later, and....

Ta-da!!

Just how I imagined it - the perfect pop of colour I was looking for. I could hardly wait until the paste had dried properly to start filling the shelves.

Yep - pretty pleased with that.