In my plans to work on my studio, I have- for the last 2 years- had a very particular TV unit in mind. There is a wall in the room that cries out for a bookshelf/ place to put the TV. I've worked on so many other things in the room, I never actually got around to getting that shelf just yet. But I knew exactly which one I wanted. This one from IKEA (shocking, I know):
[IKEA Expedit TV Unit]
About 6 weeks ago I finally took a tape measure to the wall, and discovered that the wall is about 4" too short for this unit! I had been so focused on it for the last two years, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do instead. There was another unit at IKEA that would fit size wise...but it just wasn't what I wanted. So it was time to start scheming. And I managed to take a horribly ugly mess and turn it into a makeover I am very proud of:
A couple of weekends ago I bought this horribly hideous TV entertainment stand at a local garage sale. It was tagged at $50. I offered $40. They wouldn't go below $45. But I also overheard them say that they needed everything out by 4pm that day. So I finally walked away- but left my phone number and said if it was still there at the end of the day, and they wanted it out of there, I'd come back for $30. At 4:15 my phone rang...and I picked this ugly thing up for $30! (There are identical units at the local St. Vinnie's for $175!!!)
Solid oak unit, with horrible thick rounded edges and 80's gold accents. By the time I remembered that I wanted a "before" picture of this unit, I'd already removed the upper ugly dark tinted glass doors. And you can't even see the huge bulb lamps that were behind the glass doors.
Aren't these doors something, uh, "spectacular"? And off they came! With a little mallet action by D, those ugly edges and doors were outta there. And after about 10 minutes, it looked something like this:
[ignore the messy garage in the background!]
I wanted something glossy and white and clean and modern. Could I make it happen?
I needed just enough sunny weather to get me outside to do some sanding and clean this thing up. It had a slight musty old cigarette smell to it. Some wood cleaner, soap and water and some sanding later, I was starting to make progress.
You can see some of the major inperfections in the wood- particularly the big gap where the doors were mounted into. The edges were rough and uneven. I've wanted to try this iron-on melamine edging for a while now- and this was the perfect project for it.
I first went to Home Depot, but they only had 1" strips. I thought that's all there was. But then I went to the local home improvement store and they had all sorts of options- and thankfully there was a 3/4" strip- which would fit perfectly on the edges.
I cut them to length, and then taped them in place with a little painter's tape. The iron is heated up to the cotton setting, and then slowly moved along the edging to melt the glue and attach to the wood. Worked like a charm. And I had had these great clean edges.
The primer was a must, to seal in the "old" smell...and 1 quart of primer, and almost half a gallon of white paint later, it was looking more and more like what I had envisioned.
Then this awesome project came upstairs into the studio. On the last trip to IKEA I picked up a set of Dioder lights. Super flat profile, clean and sleek looking. And the set of 4 cost me $10 more then the entire unit. But ya'know.
There were a couple of staples that needed to secure the back board a little more and then I needed 2 more holes in the top for the new lights. A little painter's tape helped to keep the holes clean.The toe kick still needed to be nailed on. I picked up a plain, flat piece of molding- I wanted to keep all the edges and clean and simple as possible.
[That would be D laughing at me as I said "wait. you have to pose for an action shot as you nail in the toe kick. So good of him to humor me!]
The pegs for the shelves were (of course) this disgusting brass/gold color. I originally was going to paint them silver- but turns out I didn't have any silver spray paint (shocking actually, amongst my 20+ cans in the garage). So option two was white.
So I poked a bunch of holes into a piece of styrofoam (from a printer I finally unpacked this last week- after it has sat in the closet for nearly 2 years!) and punched a bunch of holes the put all of the pegs in there. A couple of passes with the white spray paint and now I have white pegs!
The whole thing was pulled up, the light switch mounted on the back of the unit, and all of the cables run to the TV.
[Loooove it!]
Total project price?
TV Unit: $30
Lights from IKEA: $40
Melamine Edging: $18 (I spent $6 more then I needed to because I first bought the 1" strips, which was really too wide)
Paint and Supplies: $28 (I spent $10 more than I needed to because I didn't buy a gallon of the white paint, instead bought a quart and then a gallon)
Toe Kick board: $4
Total Expense: $120.
Awesome TV unit that I got to customize just how I wanted it...totally priceless.
