Grace Lucky's DIY: Pallet board book case

I have been wanting to make my boys a bookcase for a while now. The only problem was that their room was not big enough for a bookcase. I had planned on putting one right outside their room in the hallway but it would have been a very small bookcase. I was hesitant to put one there because it was not going to fit all of their books. After some time had passed, I decided that I would put one on the second landing of the stairs.

I wanted to get rid of the left over pallet boards that I had sitting in my backyard, so I thought that this would be the perfect project for that. I literally used up all of the wood that I had left over.

First I measured how much space I would have in the landing and laid out the boards according to how wide and tall I wanted it.

After everything was laid out, I labeled what was going to go where, i.e. bottom shelf and backboard.

After I labeled everything I made my cuts.

I used these mending braces to attach the shelves together and some of the boards on the back (these things are awesome!)

Before I painted I sanded the bookcase down with an 80 grit paper.

I painted the bookcase with a chalk paint that I made.

I applied two coats of paint. When the paint was dry I decoupaged a Batman figure that I cut out from a poster. I used my own decoupage mixture.

I purchased this lantern for $5 at Five Below. I wanted a light to go on top of the book case so we would be able to see it at night when we are going up or down the stairs. The boys and I are a bit clumsy sometimes so I wanted to make sure we wouldn't be running in to it!

Although the bookcase does sit on the floor, I wanted to make sure that it was secure and would not topple over onto one of the boys. I purchased this picture hanger from Hobby Lobby for about $4 with a 40% off coupon. It holds up to 100 lbs but they also sell one that holds up to 200 lbs. I attached it to the back of the back case and mounted it onto the wall.