Another re-do

Quite a while back I posted about the mystery box (or coffin, as we called it) that was attached to a wall at the bottom of our basement stairs. You can find that post here. Take a look at the pictures in that post to get the full effect of what I'm talking about.

When we tore down the awful wood panelling and the mystery box, we ran into all sorts of problems with redoing that small section of wall. First, the paneling was held up with millions of nails along with some sort of thick, black glue. Both of these elements damaged the wall and created a lot more work than we ever thought we'd have to do in order to repair the wall.

So instead of completely repairing the wall, I found some paint called Old World Plaster. It's thick like plaster, but can be applied to the wall with a paint roller. I found a greenish color to match the rest of the basement wall color and luckily it worked like a charm. We didn't have to repair the drywall or scrape off the black glue. The plaster creates a really cool effect on the wall reminiscent of old European homes and cafes.


After the walls were sufficiently plastered and painted to an effect that pleased me, another challenge arose: what do I do with the wall? I have a small collection of classic hardbound books that I've always wanted to display, but never had bookshelves that would do them justice. After some searching and a few hours of frustrating installation, I had a place to display my books along with a few precious pictures of my baby boy.

The bottom of the wall was a bit more damaged than the rest because of the "coffin" and for months I knew I wanted a narrow trunk to to replace the coffin. It would hold my throws and blankets where they would be easily accessible to remedy the chill of our basement. I found just what I wanted at a great price from overstock.com. Unfortunately the trunk came in damaged, with one of the corners cracked and they were sold out of the model I purchased. So, they refunded my money and said I could keep the damaged merchandise at no cost. Awesome! The damage isn't very noticeable and can easily be repaired. Total cost of trunk: $0.


I'm really happy how everything turned out. This is now what you see at the bottom of my basement stairs in place of the mystery coffin and ugly wood paneling: