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.
Big Foot looks amazing in your house! They were made for each other.
Very pretty and yes so much better! Good find Jeremy!
Beautiful piece. Just a reminder to anchor both pieces to the wall as there definitely is a tip hazard there!
Katie, Big Foot was meant for your family room! Looks amazing! I’m a relatively new reader and looking through your photos I could not stop wondering what is upstairs just above the wall that Big Foot rests on? It looks like the railing blocks it off. Is it just a decorative ledge? It’s killing me, I need to know…if you don’t think I’m weird for asking. 🙂
Love your home and your blog.
I love the new look, and such a great deal! But I have to ask, in a few pics you show the top of the wall that bigfoot is on, what is on the other side of that? Does the walkway upstairs look over to a ceiling of the kitchen, or is that wall just freestanding and then the walkway up stairs can see into the kitchen and into the living room, and they see the top of the wall dividing them? I’m so curious!
LOL! We have RH shelving with those handles and our 7, 8, and 10 year olds still havent mastered opening and closing them!
Those are beautiful! I have all the shelf envy!
WOW!! Look so so good!! Definitely not cheap, but for that quality and your total discount, it seems like a perfect fit! Love it!!!
We have a similar large shelving unit (comes in two pieces also, like yours) and it has been in five houses. It’s a beast to move but oh so worth it. It makes the room and is so great for all that it holds. All of our study books, family pictures, golf trophies, work awards, fun stuff from the kids (now adults) and then lots of things in the bottom in bins. You’ll love it for years and years. Good choice!
Love it! It looks great in that space. Are those double ovens where your refrigerator used to be (I caught a glimpse in one of the pictures). Are you doing a kitchen reveal soon?
I love reading your blog, but if I could give some feedback – please turn off the feature that plays your videos as soon as you start scrolling. Its so annoying. I can’t focus on reading the blog.
What kind of balls/vase filler do you have inside the glass terrarium? I have the same ones and can’t decide what to put in them.
Just a heads up that your zip code plus 4 is often unique to your address — posting ZIP-XXXX in the RH checkout image is the same as posting your entire address, or something very close to it.
Love your new shelving unit!! It is perfect for that space! I know you are going to enjoy constantly rearranging
things!
I’m confused? Don’t you have a garage that you recently renovated to do “more DIY projects in”? Don’t you consider yourself and your husband DIY’ers? Why buy that piece when you could build one? Is it just for the clicks to RH for the $$$$?
Looks so good!!! That price was unreal!! Great find!!
Were the dimensions you gave Modsy wrong? Your rendering shows plenty of clearance but IRL it looks like you have a very awkward amount of space back there between the shelves and your sectional.
Oh that was the awkward phase – it was because that is when our christmas tree was on the right hand side of the sectional. It pushed it back and made the walkway smaller….but the tree won’t go there in the future 🙂
xo – kb
The RH piece isn’t an affiliate link so we made zero dollars off linking it. And yes, we are DIYers but I wouldn’t say that all DIYers are created equal….we definitely couldn’t build a piece like this. I would say that I could tile like a pro but my woodworking skills are still beginner/intermediate level. This would be a very hard piece for us!
xo – kb
Those are ornaments! This was during Christmas 🙂
xo – kb
We have a whole new redesign coming soon so I will be sure to make sure to put that in my notes!
xo – kb
Come follow me on Instastories – there is a lot of background stuff going on that I share over there!
xo – kb
I’ll do an empty house video tour on Instastories soon so come follow me over there and follow along!
xo – kb
Its the weird wall separating the stairs and the living room…it’s kinda hard to explain!
xo – kb
Love love your pieces!! We hired a local reputable person to build something similar but with doors for our TV room and kitchen … 7 months later and a 50% deposit later… we have nothing but an unprofessional builder who keeps stalling on installation because he needs people to help him and he ran behind with building early on. Your RH pieces (full price) are more affordable than what we are paying this guy. you should offer a service to help people scour the web for pieces based on measurement!! I would use you! Please send positive vibes our way … maybe we’ll get our pieces at the one year mark?? At least I have photos of the pieces … sigh
Great looking piece! Could you give all the dimensions (length, height, depth) please? I may have to build this!
They are all in the description of the piece in a similar color (it’s linked at the bottom of the post!). That would be much more accurate than what I could describe!
xo – kb
So have any of your boys thrown balls over the balcony into the top of the bookshelf? That was my first thought with the open top design. I have a 2 year old who would love to drop stuff through the top
The top is flat and we have an extension pole brush thing that we use to get off ALL the things from our boys. Its not that ledge that is the worst though…the ones next to the fireplace that are twenty feet high get stuff stuck on them all the time! ha!
xo – kb