What is now a built-in bookcase in my foyer was, many moons ago, the servants’ entrance to the kitchen. But when I bought the place, it looked like the area in the upper left photo.

 

Yep, a dead-end hall with a strange, 7-foot-tall, white plywood framework. The former owners had a single black-and-white photograph hanging there, which looked a little sad and lost in the expanse. As you can see, my own makeshift solution for using the space was equally uninspired and a bit junky.

 

So with a bookcase in mind, one holiday visit, my dad was kind enough to help fit the top and cut the shelves of simple oak boards. Then it came time for staining. But alas. The plywood back would not sand down. The plywood back would not respond to a heat gun, which was also setting off my fire detectors. (I was leery to use stripping solution for fear of splashing the woodwork and floor.) And when we tried painting the bookcase with a tinted topcoat? It wouldn’t absorb, so the whole thing just looked a bit like… well… poo. Or, more accurately, poo on a white plywood wall.

 

So we tried painting it with a gel stain. Surely, that would do the trick. And lo, the poo was gone. But now the dark, flat color of the gel sucked all the light from the hallway. It was more black hole than bookcase.

 

Eventually I had the idea to back the whole thing with beadboard, which I could stain.

 

 

Note: the seams between the rows of wainscoting have been disguised with a strip of thin molding.