Not sure if you’ve ever noticed, but I follow a lot of DIY, decorate on the cheap blogs.  It’s kinda become an obsession.  A good obsession.  Many objects in our new home have seen a good coat of spray paint to mix, match and change up the way things work in the new house.

One of my “biggest” DIY** ideas was born a few months back.  Matt had been insistent that his time had come to get a new TV.  I guess his man card was in limbo of being striped.  He had been watching the same TV since we had gotten married.  On the same entertainment center with the same DVD player.  I mean what kind of wife am I allowing him to suffer this way?  After hours of research he found THE TV.  However, with the price of THE TV and the coordinating Blueray (not to mention cords to connect it all)  and multiple Blueray movies he would want I was trying to think of a way to save on the cost of the entertainment center needed to hold the new TV & components.  The old one’s configuration with a square hole obviously wasn’t going to work.

**DYI as in do it myself with the construction work and heavy lifting done by hubby & FIL :)

I had found several ideas where people had taken the cheapy particle board furniture such as TV stands or book cases, add some trim, paint it up and whala. Good as new!  So that was my mission.

Here’s the pathetic “before” shots.

Kinda grainy.  It had a shelf that came up each side of the TV and across the top.  The components were on each lower side behind glass doors.  The DVDs were EVERYWHERE.in.sight.and out of control along the bottom on an angled shelf and behind the glass doors with the components AND along the top shelf.

Here my Father-in-law had already chopped off the top shelf that went above the TV.

Here is the base with the top hutch removed.  As you can see the particle board is a beautiful honey oak look with gray tops.   Here you can see how he used some boards to build a “bridge” across the top.  He later added a piece of oak that ran the full length of the top.  Why oak?  ONLY b/c we had it left over.   MDF or pine would have been find to save $$ especially since we were painting it.  They added trim along the edge and some new backing as the craptastic cardboard backing had seen better days after 10 years! 

So a coat of tinted primer and some Cracked Pepper paint from the not so helpful woman at Lowes and we were on our way to transformation!

Once primed I practiced on the back to see how to best achieve the finish we were hoping for.  Our goal was a black/brown distressed look.  I tried painting it brown and distressing with black.  I tried painting it black and distressing with brown latex and brown acrylic.

What ended up working was a base of  Cracked Pepper black paint in semi gloss finish distressed by using brown acrylic craft paint.  We then protected the surface with a semi gloss poly. Here’s a close up.  Looks a bit different b/c of the flash.  The coloring is more subtle than it looks in the photo.

   

Final outcome.  One of my favorite ideas was the removal of the DVD holder which allowed a perfect space for the big square pillows we already had!    Now I just need some baskets & decor to fill the other spaces. Oh and the enormous.overly large TV has kinda grown on me.  55” is very big!

Matt ended up mounting the TV on the wall at about the same height it would be sitting on the stand.  I was all for having it out of reach of small hands as possible!!

Here was my helper.  See the hole in the sub behind him.  Yeah.  That’s his favorite place to stick all his small toys.   Daddy loooves that!

Also.  Did you know children are attracted to windex.  Proof below.  Guess he had heard me complaining about all the finger prints.  Let’s change it up….Why not a footprint?