DIY painted books for a monochromatic look!

I’ve been working on decorating my built in bookshelves and it hit me one day that they needed…BOOKS! haha, go figure? So, I had a little idea!

These DIY painted books are so easy and give such a beautiful monochromatic look to your home! Paint them any color you like!

DIY painted books

There are many ways you can take an old book and make it into decor! Some people (the big book lovers I guess) tend to gasp at these types of projects, but let me just say I AM HERE FOR THIS!

For me…I hit up my local goodwill because I knew I was going to want to use a lot of larger hardback books that I didn’t have on hand. So I have ZERO attachments to these books lol.

DIY painted books

I knew I was going to do 2 groupings of these, so I spent some time there trying to find books that were similar in size so that the 2 groupings would look cohesive. This part wouldn’t matter if you were only doing one stack!

The best part about these DIY painted books…you can paint as many or as few as you would like and in ANY color!

I decided I wanted to go with a neutral beige color, so I grabbed this color called sandstone from the Waverly chalk paint line at Walmart.

DIY painted books

You don’t have to use chalk paint, but I do love the chalky matte finish it gives for this look!

The rest was simple…paint, paint and paint some more! It was a bit time consuming, but not hard!

DIY painted books

Each book took at least 3 coats (some 4) in order to cover up words on the spine, etc.

DIY painted books

And guess what?! I even “cheated” a bit and on some of them I only painted the areas that I knew were going to show! I figured why waste good paint on the rest?!

DIY painted books

I’m totally in love with these DIY painted books on my bookshelf and they were truly the perfect thing for the top shelf! What do you think?!

DIY painted books
DIY painted books

I’ve still been playing around with styling these fully, but will be sharing the reveal VERY SOON with y’all. In fact…I’ll be setting something different on top of these books that I’m even more excited about! Can’t wait!

DIY painted books

Until next time…
Stacey

5 Comments

  1. Carol Thompson

    Ah ha…a way to use my old nursing textbooks!

  2. Suzi Noble

    Love the Sandstone color, great choice & idea!

  3. Linda Smith

    I’m definitely gonna do this ????️

  4. Darlene DeJarnett

    I love that clock. Where did you get it?

    • Stacey Collins

      Kirklands!