Studio Bookcase

There is an odd "L" shaped wall space in my studio.

When this room was a living/dining room, this space

held the television.  

SORRY FOR THE BLURRY PIC!

When my nest started to empty of children,  the room became used less and less.

Moving my studio into this space has been the best thing,

but this little odd area has always bothered me.

I conceptualized various bookcase configurations, but custom

building one was really the only way to tackle it.

Kind of like one of my favorite Designers,

Thomas Wold.

Originally I had the idea to create a totally asymmetrical configuration using antique corbels, shadow boxes, columns and random vintage architectural pieces.

So for my birthday, My Man spent the day working with me to

create this Bookcase.  But my original design wasn't working well for the "L" shape of the wall,

or a Thomas Wold inspired wall.

So, we opted for Table legs, tree branches and some high grade plywood.

I have to give a serious shout-out to my Man.

He is not a woodworker by training and did the most amazing job.

I was pretty impressed with in construction ingenuity!

Best part?  Table legs were FREE.  I picked up a table at the curb last year on trash day.  

The tree branches were from the local neighborhood after our seasonal

crazy winds.

But...I have a SECRET....

The branches are NOT all Birch.

Only the two bottoms ones are.

The topmost ones are from a eucalyptus tree and the second from top shelf is from a cypress tree.

I faux painted the top three to look like the bottom two.

Fun to return to my trompe l'oeil mural roots for this.

Over the MOON happy with the outcome, but I am still in a quandary about what to do to the shelves.

Paint and distress?

Stain them dark, to go with the OLD wood on much of my studio furniture?

What do you think???

What would you do???