DIY Built-Ins with IKEA Bookshelves: A 2 Year Update

These DIY “built-ins” or entertainment center using IKEA Billy Bookcases remains one of my favorite DIY home projects I have done and also one of my most popular here on the blog! If you want the details of how I did this project, you can read the original post here:

It’s been almost 2 years since we did this project, so I wanted to give a little update on if I still like it, if I would do anything differently, how it’s holding up, etc.

Here are our faux built-ins today!:

Can you tell we acquired quite a few plants and read quite a bit more over quarantine? 😉

Do I still like how it turned out/fits the space?

Still love it! This living room needed something like built-ins or an entertainment center and this was the most cost effective way while still keeping it simple in my opinion. It was hard to find an entertainment center (much less custom built-ins) that we liked for under $600, so I’m super happy with the decision that we made to DIY it.

It matches our white kitchen cabinets really well and since we have an open concept living room/kitchen, I think it worked out really well. Since we don’t have a fireplace in this house, I like that it gave more of a focal point to the room.

Anything you would do differently?

Part of me wishes that I had run the cords for the TV through the wall, but since I have the cord cover and I painted it to match the wall color, it honestly doesn’t bother me much at all.

Is the quality good/how is it holding up?

It’s holding up actually really well! I obviously didn’t do a perfect job with this project! You can read the original post to see an area that we cover up with strategically placed basket for example haha

But we always get compliments on it when people come into our home for the first time. It fits our style really well and we like being able to show off some of our plants and some of the books we have been reading recently. It also gives us more storage in the living room which is something that will be great if we have kids down the road for toys and things

I also really love some of the little decor items we have strategically found and picked out for the bookcases in the last couple years.

And in case you need another reminder:

This was our living room the first 6+ months we lived in our house. Big empty wall, looking pretty sad 🙁

This was how things looked once I completed the project and how I initially decorated the shelves:

This is how I have our shelves decorated today. There’s still a few pieces that I want to eventually swap out, but I really like the way it is decorated and looks now!

If you have any questions about the project, be sure to drop a question in the comments!