Tuesday, May 15, 2012

DIY Entertainment Center

This is the final piece to our "living room makeover":  building an entertainment center under our TV.  After rearranging our furniture and selling our old TV stand, we mounted our TV onto a different wall. We liked the idea of moving our TV higher up so that little fingers couldn't play with it. It also freed up floor space since our old TV stand was a corner unit.  We purchased a TV wall mount to hang the TV, but wanted storage for our DVD player, gaming system, and speakers, + books etc.  I got the idea to make an entertainment center using some bookcases, while giving them a built-in look. I got the idea from  http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/

I ordered three white bookcases from Target.com and here we are putting them together.  Remember, we were originally planning on getting the Ikea versions but Joe talked me out of it at the time.  So unfortunately we didn't get the five that were planning, but instead ordered three.


I decided to add some pretty small print fabric to the backs of each bookcase. I used fabric adhesive to glue it on and then the cardboard backing got nailed on to the frame. The fabric is from Joann's.


From far away the print gets lost, but looks like a pretty blue. Here's one little shelf built. I couldn't wait to put stuff in the shelves, even though we had an important step left. 


Here's my little collection of Morrissey albums on 45" singles.


My gray basket and my little birdie.


Not done yet.  But here are the bookcases mounted to the wall under the TV. We graduated the middle bookcase out a little for a built-in look, plus room for the electrical strip behind it.


At Lowes, Joe bought some particleboard to go on top of all three bookcases. He cut out a piece to cover each bookcase. Here he is outside cutting one down with a saw.


Then he put each piece on top to match up to the three bookcases (with a little overhang), used a scribe to trace the curve of the wall onto each board. He then used his belt sander to shape each board to the traced line, giving a nice flush fit against the wall.




He used a jigsaw to cut three half circles in the back of each bookcase, to allow wires to run out of the top.


After lining up the boards as carefully as possible, then clamping, he used an air nailer to anchor the boards to the bookcases.


He then nailed chair molding around the bookcases, starting with the edge between the bookcase and wall. To fit snugly around the floor trim, he used a coping saw to cut out part of the molding.


Here's the molding, going around the first couple of corners. The miter saw really helped with this!


Again, inner corners look much better with coping, as opposed to a 45 degree cut. It's actually pretty easy, and kinda fun. Here's a tutorial: http://www.familyhandyman.com/DIY-Projects/Home-Decorating/Decorative-Trim/how-to-cope-joints/View-All.


We just used white latex/silicone caulk to fill any gaps between pieces.


We color matched a quart of white paint to the bookcases and gave them two nice coats of paint. We used a roller brush for the top and a bristle brush for the trim.


Here is our TV built-ins all done!  We love the way they look! Such a drastic change from before.


Here's a side view, so you can see the middle shelf coming out slightly.


Here's my little Runny Bunny half bird, half poodle.  And my new gray baskets.


Here are two of the four white Ikea photo storage boxes and the teal baskets I spray painted.


So much storage for books.


Our kids love this space now. They love snuggling up on the bean bag chairs and watching some TV at the end of the day while I get dinner ready.


And once upon a time our living room looked like this:


We sold this expedit bookcase. It was great for 5+ years, but made more sense for us to use this wall for the TV.


One last After shot for ya. Such a far cry from the original room above. You've come a long way baby. 


xo
Cathleen

4 comments:

IHeart Organizing said...

Such a lovely transformation, your space is looking to airy and bright. The built in turned out divine! Thank you so much for sharing!

xoxo,
Jen

Peahen Pad said...

Jen -And thank you for the inspiration! Your house is amazing!

Anonymous said...

This looks awesome! I saw Jen's blog first and with my space, I will need to build an entertainment center just like yours (my husband is even on board after seeing yours!!! that never happens :)). What kind of fabric did you use? Was it easy to put on? I would think it would be much cheaper than using wall paper.

Peahen Pad said...

Awesome, so glad you like it. I used cotton fabric from the fabric store and it still looks great. I used fabric spray glue to attach it to the back piece. Make sure you line it up if there is a pattern. :) Good luck and let me know how it turns out.

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