Best Birthday Present Ever

So I have this dream of walking into a room and it being like the library in Beauty and the Beast.

Now I am not anywhere near that dream but believe it or not Ryan and I have a large amount of books for our tiny little apartment and we only had one bookshelf which was full and no extra space on it.  So for my birthday this year Ryan made me a bookshelf.  

Now we discussed several different styles and kinds of wood for building this bookshelf but we didn't hit on the perfect plan until Ryan's parents came back with an idea for a modular bookcase and the plans went something like this.

If you can't tell the plans took me a while to get right.

The final look was a combination of ideas from Ryan, his dad, and Pinterest images.

The first box off the drawing board.

 Ryan and his dad worked very hard on it together several nights to get it just right for me.

 They even used a router on all the edges the round them off so they weren't rough and dangerous to me or any other individual that will use my amazing bookshelf.

 The next step was staining the wood.  

I chose a deep but slightly tinted one of Red Mahogany.

I enjoyed the staining process and watching the grain of the wood come out.

Ryan's Mom helped a lot with the sanding, staining, and the most time consuming stage of polyurethane layers that help protect the bookcase from weather and wear.

 The first stages done the pieces began to come home and be put in place.

It took some reorganization of my home but it was a beautiful thing to see it all come together.   

 All the pieces finally home.

The final product

I am proud to say that now every single book we own is now on a bookshelf in our house.

What an amazing thing to see; I know it is a lot of color but since our apartment is rather lacking in any color it actually helps go beyond the beige.

Thanks to my amazing husband and his very helpful parents.