Let me introduce you to my new exciting living room addition….our big old brown shelves and for the sake of this post, you can call him Big Foot. He is dark, has a classic look that will last and came outta nowhere! Big Foot is our beastly living room shelving unit that we got last year and I am super excited to give him the grand entrance he deserves. Drum roll please…..
Don’t mind that cutie in the front in desperate need of a haircut 😉
So I had shared our new sectional and rug….along with this shot of the back wall. Two of our old living room shelves lived in here and we quickly realized that these average sized bookshelves were looking way too small for the space. In fact, the room is so tall that it made it look like play furniture when the truth is…these are six feet tall!
That wall is very hard to decorate around. It has a column on one side that juts out about 9 inches and the other side of the wall runs into the molding for the kitchen entrance. The old bookshelf was a solid ten inches deep and worked in theory….allowed for more storage and display….nestled into that off center wall….and anchored that side of the room across from our builtins and fireplace. But the two side by side just looked too miniature….like children’s furniture in a normal sized house.
So when I worked on the Modsy board (you can read about how I am using Modsy to help design this room because it is so dang tricky!), I wanted to see how deep we could go with a unit on that back wall and still maintain enough room to walk. The answer was 18″. I could get a piece that is 18″ deep before things got awkward. Kinda like close-talking but with furniture.
At that same time (like down to the millisecond), Jeremy saw that Restoration Hardware was having a big sale and he found a giant closed shelving unit that had solid doors. I was intrigued and immediately went to check it out. I know that their sales don’t last long because there may be only one or two copies of each item. I instantly fell in love with our Big Foot when I spotted him (sorry Jeremy!). He had everything we were wanting….closed storage on the bottom….enough size to not look weird in our room…woodwork trim on the top that mimicked our own moldings. It felt like fate. Big Foot and I were destined to be together. Crazy enough…that last sentence isn’t the weirdest thing I have ever written 🙂
The original price was $4495 and it was marked down to $1795. WHA!!! Since this piece was as big as three normal bookshelves, I totally justified it in my head as $1795 divided into three….making each one about $600 each….which yes is pricey but more in my budget. I found out that if I bought the membership to Restoration Hardware for $100, then I save $300….so I jumped on that in a jiffy.
At $1436 (plus the $100 member fee), I felt like it was a really good deal. I mean – I would have paid $500 each for three bookshelves at World Market and this is Restoration Hardware! The quality is amazing!
When delivery day arrived, I was STOKED. First of all….it looked GIGANTIC.
I thought it was interesting that the top piece was open….
The top just sits on it and there is a bracket in the back that attaches them both.
Once it was all set up (literally it took the delivery guys about five minutes!), I decided to throw some decor up there and see how it felt. Jeremy instantly loved it and said it feels so size-appropriate. I agree. We have a big house and average size furniture gets swallowed….Big foot however can hold his own.
I can’t guarantee that it will stay in here forever….honestly I am wondering what it would look like in the dining room with all the dishes….hint hint Jeremy Bower…but then I don’t think I could see this big empty wall again. I just couldn’t stomach it after looking at this beauty all the time 🙂
Either way, Big Foot is gonna stay with us for a while. We love that the boys can’t figure out how to open the doors on the bottom (not yet anyway) and that the storage down there is big enough for all my other decorating items with room to spare….which only means one thing. Fate is telling me I need to go to Target 🙂 I kid I kid. But only a little.
p.s. They no longer have my big shelving unit available in my color Brown Oak Drifted but they do have the smaller one and then also a different color.