We are actually going to do the same thing in our dining room in a month or so. I love this idea and I figure if I get bored with it there I can always use it in the living room or even better in the bedroom:)

I love the concept of this as a prefab wall panel/shelving system. However, the execution is... ick. I think this would look 100 times better in a darker stain and wider slats. May cost a little more, but it would be so worth it.

Rather than have panels floating in the center of the wall, I'd love to fabricate the wall itself with slats corner to corner to hold shelves like this.

I actually have a random question. I adore the Mandal headboards and want to use them for my bed, but the annoying part is that the backboard area behind my bed is about 3/5 the width of the Mandal headboard. My question is, is there any way to saw off a portion of the headboard? Without it looking odd? And is it possible to stain the headboard a darker shade?

Kodazure, we have a Mandal headboard and bed, and my husband stripped and stained them a dark walnut color. Looks way better, in my opinion. It should be fine to cut the slats to fit your space.