DIY Dresser to Entertainment Center

Spring is in the air. The windows are open. The kids are playing outside. What more could a Momma with a brain full of projects want?! It is time to start.

Today I am working on a DIY home decor project. I am turning a pretty awesome dresser that I purchased at a garage sale last Summer into our entertainment center.

Before

See the before picture above. This is how I found it at a garage sale. I had my eyes open all season long and was excited when this one popped up. Before, I was assuming that I would end up finding a plain old wooden dresser that would need a fun color coat of paint or two and all new hardware. I knew about how much I was willing to spend on such a thing. When I saw this cool red dresser that was already painted well AND had decent looking handles AND came with two baskets?...I was shocked. The price was $170, which is more than I would usually spend on a used furniture item but when I took into consideration the time that I would save on getting another item to the same condition, it seemed like a no-brainer trade to me. So, there she was, all pretty like, but still needing my touch to make her just right. All of those eye-sore electronics and cords would have a home very soon.

There are three items we want to be housed in this unit: the receiver, the PlayStation whatever and the XBox thing-a-ma-jiggy. I chose to remove one drawer and both baskets, as they were good size openings for our electronics. I will be using those two baskets somewhere else in the house. But that's a project for another day.

The two basket compartments were already finished nicely on the inside so I only had to build a cubby in one drawer space. A not very aesthetically pleasing hole in the dresser so I had myself a little project. Yay!

Family trip to Home Depot!

The twins are really enjoying Home Depot trips. I predict two handymen!

I purchased a piece of sanded plywood that is 1/4" (thick) x 2'x4' in order to make two sides and a bottom for the cubby. They even cut it for me in the store. Cost for the wood: $9.92.

I put the boards into place and used a few finishing nails to secure them. And then it was time to use power tools. Double yay!

I wanted all of the cords for our electronics to go out the back of the unit. That means I got to drill holes into the back panel. I used a hole saw attachment for our drill and put a hole in the back of the three electronics compartments.

Now all she needed was some paint in her plain wooden cubby. I decided on Saffron Strands (yellow) by Behr. I love this color and had some leftover from our Music Room Makeover project. A penny saved...

After

I am very pleased with how she turned out. I will take a better 'after' picture when we have the living room painted and the electronics installed, but for now this one will have to do. We are also going to have the TV mounted up onto the wall above this piece. I can't wait to have it nice and organized. Thank you so much for reading and please come again!

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My 16 Year Old's Room is Done!

Finally! Ha. Life got a little busy after I started this first bedroom project and it got pushed onto the back burner for a bit. But, today I finished...well mostly. I still have to paint an old desk we have white but no biggie. Soon.

We decided after moving into our new house three months ago that we would do each of the kids' bedrooms in order of age, oldest to youngest. It only seems fair since the oldest would typically be the first to move out and should get plenty of time to enjoy their new space.

I asked my oldest son what color he wanted his new bedroom to be and he said he didn't care and that I could just surprise him. Oh darn! I sure do hate picking out paint colors...NOT! This was very fun for me to do actually. I know his favorite color is red so I started from there. I also took into consideration things I already had to work with lying around. I am pretty thrifty and like to reuse and re-purpose whenever I can. There is never a huge budget to work with.

The room was pretty plain when we moved in. I love a fresh palette. Here are some before pictures:

Hey, there is that desk that I still need to paint white! 

Like I said, pretty plain.

I found this next picture of a cool kid bedroom online and used it as my inspiration for this project. It did not have links to any information on their own color choices and such so I had to wing it.

Image from: http://decorativebedroom.com/stylish-and-modern-bedroom-ideas-for-teen-boys/

As for the new paint colors, I purchased a gallon of Behr California Poppy for the red color and I still had some leftover Behr Broadway for the black color from when I painted the Music Room so I only needed to purchase a quart more of that. As for the white, I just used some old white paint that the previous owners of our house had left for us. How's that for thrifty?

I really liked the metallic touches in the inspirational picture so I went to Amazon.com and found a pretty inexpensive Diamond Plate stick on wall border.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007TN9T0S/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I pulled out all of the old nails and screws and then filled and sanded all of the blemishes on the walls. I painted like crazy and got a little help putting on the sticky wall border. I used a comforter and pillow set I already had that wasn't in use anymore. I repainted an old book shelf and chair (and the desk soon). I recovered the seat cushion of the old chair. I also covered the Papsan chair cushion with an old duvet cover we had until I find a new perfect cushion in my price range. I am very patient and the right thing will present itself, eventually. I also had a set of six small black picture frames that I had never used before just collecting dust in my craft closet and four antique looking wall plates with pictures of coffee cups on them. My son loves coffee so I figured, why not?

After all that, I ended up with a pretty cool room for my oldest son, if I do say so myself. What do you think?

So, there it is folks. I will keep my eyes open for cool decorative things, like maybe a hubcap clock, neon sign, Papasan cushion, etc. All in all I am very proud of this finished room. I hope he loves it, too!

If you liked this post, you may also like: Music Room Makeover

And, if you would like to keep up with my home decorationg projects, you can find me on Pinterest!

Music Room Makeover

Well, we are moved into our new house and are all very happy here. It has been a literal life changer, for the better. Plenty of space for the seven of us and our dog and two cats. I have come along in the unpacking process nicely and we are down to the last boxes of random crap and junk that we are not quite sure if or what to do with yet. So, I'm feeling pretty good about all of that.

I purposely scheduled our house warming party for this weekend, one month and a couple of days since we moved in. It might be a little soon but I know myself very well and having a strict deadline for the unpacking is exactly what I needed to push myself to get it done.

We decided we are not going to do any real decorating, painting or projects before the party, with the exception of one room...the Music Room! I decided that this room should be painted right away, in case anyone decides jamming at some point during the party is a good idea. Music equipment can be a pain in the arse to haul around and we don't want to do it any more than we have to.

When we looked at this house during the showings, we knew right away that this particular room would make the perfect practice space. It is completely underground and has no window, great for keeping loud music from bothering our new neighbors. There is no real ceiling which I think is kind of cool, for what we are using the room for. It was painted a plain old beige color when we moved in; nothing spectacular to look at. A clean palette. I LOVE color and decided to pounce on the opportunity to try something new and bold.

I was at Home Depot a couple of months ago and decided to grab one of every paint brochure they had in anticipation of the new house...and who am I kidding? I really just wanted to drool over and dream about new paint colors. I found a color combination in a Behr brochure and felt it was perfect for this room. It would look great with the lights on or even with the lights dimmed down or with rope lighting, which is pretty fun when people are over playing music. Here is a snap shot of the page from that brochure (I apologize, the pictures in this post are not as quality as I wish they were):

Image from a Behr brochure

The colors are Majestic Orchid, Saffron Strands and Broadway. For the orchid color, I chose a satin finish with the hopes that fun lighting will reflect off of it nicely. Our room already has some built in shelving and a door panel for the utility box so I thought these colors would spiffy up the music room nicely. Here is how it turned out:

Now, all we have left to do is hang up some awesome rock and roll posters, mount guitar hangers to the walls and plug everything in. We will have a drum set soon, we just have to go pick it up and I'm pretty sure I saw those rope lights rolled up in the garage somewhere. That's it.

I love it so much. I find myself just sneaking in there and looking around a couple times a day just to soak it in. Ahh.

Thanks for stopping by and...Rock On!

** If you want to know more about the paint colors you see here or to keep up with my future home decorating projects, please stop by my Pinterest page and follow me. I have some fun DIY projects coming up in the near future. I would love to share them with you!
http://www.pinterest.com/ginnylouden/