DIYer Picks Up Free Bookcases From Facebook Marketplace, Skips the Sanding and Color Drenches Them in One Bold Shade That She Says Is Everything

The video opens looking straight down into an open can of paint the color of red wine. A wooden stir stick drags through it, and a line of script lettering names the shade: “Bewitched by B.M.” Fourteen seconds later, a wall of orange toned bookcases has turned into the richest thing in the room, and Instagram creator @at_home_with_marisa has made her case for the caption she put on it: “This color is everything!!”

The rest of her caption is the whole recipe in one sentence. “Free bookcases from fbmp, didn’t sand them, and color drenched them in ‘bewitched by Benjamin Moore in satin for doors and cabinets.'” Free furniture from Facebook Marketplace, no sanding, one color on every surface.

See more

The before shots show what she started with. The bookcases stand side by side along a wall, each with an arched top, open shelves above and three drawers below, all in a warm honey finish that leans orange. Then the camera pushes into an open drawer and stops on the detail that makes the word “free” sting a little for anyone who has paid full price for furniture. Stamped into the wood is the name Ethan Allen.

The cut to the after is immediate. The same bookcases are now the deep red from the can, and nothing was left out. The frames, the shelves, the back panels and the drawer fronts are all the same shade, so the arched tops and the drawer lines read as shadows instead of as separate parts. In the dimmer shots the color goes almost brown, and where the light hits it the red comes back.

She styled the shelves for fall and kept them loose. A candle glows on a top shelf. There is a carved duck decoy, a framed print of a duck, a long wooden bowl piled with gourds, a woven basket, a few stacks of books, and a white pumpkin with a jack o’lantern face sitting next to a gray one. In the last shot her hand comes into the frame and hangs a beaded tassel from the edge of a shelf, just in front of the bowl.

That is the entire video, and it is enough to make you start scrolling the free listings. Before you do, a few things will help your version turn out like hers.

First, open the drawers. The stamp she filmed is the fastest way to tell a piece worth hauling home from one that is not. Look inside drawers, on the back panel and underneath for a maker’s name, and look at how the drawer corners are joined. Solid wood furniture with a known name on it can take a coat of paint and decades more use. Swollen particleboard will look tired again within a year no matter what color it is.

Second, know what “didn’t sand” asks of the paint. She names a satin finish for doors and cabinets, and that matters. Paints made for cabinets and trim are meant to level out and dry to a harder shell than standard wall paint, which is what lets them hold up on a shelf that gets books dragged across it. If you skip sanding, do not skip cleaning. Old furniture carries years of polish, hand oils and kitchen grease, and paint will not grip any of it. Wash every surface with a degreasing cleaner, rinse it, and let it dry completely.

If the old finish is very glossy, a liquid deglosser or a bonding primer gives the paint something to hold without the dust of sanding. A quick test tells you where you stand. Paint a small patch on the back or inside a drawer, give it a couple of days, and scratch it with a fingernail. If it stays put, keep going. If it peels, add the primer.

Third, drench for real. The reason her bookcases look custom is that there is no second color anywhere. That means painting the backs, the undersides of the shelves and the edges you think nobody will see. Pull the drawers out and paint the fronts lying flat so the paint does not run. Two or three thin coats with a good brush and a small roller beat one heavy coat every time, and satin is forgiving because it hides brush marks better than gloss and wipes down more easily than flat.

Fourth, give it time before you decorate. Paint feels dry in a few hours, but it keeps hardening for weeks. Books and bowls set on a fresh shelf can stick and pull the finish off when you move them. Wait as long as you can stand, start with the lightest pieces, and put felt dots under anything heavy.

Her styling is worth copying too. Nothing is crammed. Books lie flat in short stacks and double as stands for smaller pieces. The biggest objects, the bowl and the basket, sit low, and each shelf has open space around what is on it. The pumpkins are the only things that say October, so in a month she can swap two items and the whole wall is ready for the next season.

One practical note on a color this dark. It will show dust sooner than a pale wood finish, so a soft cloth once a week keeps the red looking deep. That is a small price for bookcases that cost nothing and now look like they were built for the room.