Black and White and Grey All Over

I just cannot get enough of this image...

Source

I am absolutely loving the greyed out wood floors, and the perfectly imperfect dining room table, and all the lovely muted colors.... but what I really love the most is the awesome bookshelf in the background.  Totally unassuming, but so cool - a little industrial, a little classic, a little natural. It's amazing.

I've seen lots of bookshelves with patterned backs - using wallpaper, fabric, wrapping paper... but I really love how the back of this bookcase has simple planks of wood.  The greyed out, light wood allows all the accessories on the shelves to take center stage, but while they are a "quiet" muted slate for displaying the contents of the shelves, I think that they bring something really special to this bookshelf...

I also love that the shelves of this bookshelf are made out of the same cool muted wood (or is it "wood"... so hard to tell!).

After admiring this bookshelf for a while, I started brainstorming how to recreate this awesome bookshelf, and came up with a game plan.

The bookshelf in this picture looks A LOT like the Vittsjo Shelving unit from Ikea...

The problem, is that since the Vittsjo is made of a lightweight metal, it's would require some serious skillz to securely hang rustic wooden planks from the back.  I'm actually not convinced that it would really work out... it seems like a terrible idea to mount heavy wood planks on one side of a light weight frame.  I can just picture that thing toppling over.

So, to avoid DIY catastrophe, I say that using actual wood is out... going to plan b, I'm thinking something sturdy but lightweight like particle board would be a MUCH better bet. It's cheap, so all you would need are a few long sheets at Home Depot (they can measure and cut to size for you)!

Once you have a long piece of particle board cut to size, it's time to get creative.

Queue up the Faux Bois Rocker...

This one is Martha Stewart, but I'm sure there are others out there...  doesn't look like much, but it creates the COOLEST EFFECTS.  It's to be used much like a paint roller to create the cool look of wood, on flat surfaces... walls, dressers, foors, shelves... you get the idea.

Here are a few good examples of a faux bois finish...

Pretty awesome, right??

The last photo comes from Little Green Notebook, and she has a FABULOUS tutorial on how to create this effect.

OKKK - now that we've gone down the faux bois rabbit hole... I'll continue.

Create this finish (perhaps more subtly) on the MDF / particle board, screw holes in the bookshelf and attache the boards to the back.

So easy, and likely $100 for the entire project (or less if you are able to find a Vittsjo on Craigslist).

I REALLLLYYYYYY want to try this now!