DIY TV Cabinet Complete

I'm all done leading you on and ready to reveal my final DIY TV cabinet!  Before we get to the reveal, take a peek back at the building process. Now that I'm working primarily out of my home office/den I wanted to put more emphasis on the home office part instead of the den part.  This meant making the TV less of a focus.  I can't exactly hide the ugly elliptical that also sits in the room, but considering it's behind me while I'm at my desk I can pretend that it's not there.  There was no ignoring the big black box in front of me.

So like any crazy normal person, I decided to build a solution.  It still needs some minor tweaking to allow the doors to slide better, but HELLO!

To mount it, I screwed the back directly into studs.  I wouldn't hang on it, but it's not going anywhere.

So during Copper Dot hours, the room is all business...

...and when work time is over, the room becomes the den once again and the frames slide open to reveal the TV.

With the frames being the star (and currently sporting temporary DIY art) I wanted to keep the styling as simple as possible on the sides.

Don't be surprised to see some of this art evolve by the time I get to the final completion of the space.  For now, the 4 frames are filled with art from a $3 Target calendar that I couldn't resist.  It was from "The Spot" so it's not on their site.  That little corner of Target is dangerous....

Embrace the mess.  Amen!  It's killing me, but I can't find the source of this awesome print.  Even Pinterest and Google Images failed me.  It was a free download ages ago that I've just been waiting to incorporate somewhere.  If you know where it originated, please share- I want to give credit where it's due and share the source with you guys!

Seeing this part of the room come together just make me eager for the rest of the pieces to come together.  A roman shade, finishing my chair, and refacing the cubbie fronts will put the cherry on top of this make-over.

So what do you think??  Was my DIY TV cabinet worth the wait?

Settlement

We've been living in our new house for 8 weeks.  At this point in all of my previous residences, I have had things mostly set up the way I wanted.  With this house- SO not the case.  There's not a single decorative item hanging on a wall.  As far as window treatments are concerned, I've gotten as far as washing what I have in preparation for reuse or storage.  It's driving me bonkers!!!  I know its unrealistic to expect the house to be all settled, but well, I expect it!  As a creature of habit and routine, having the house unresolved is very unsettling. This weekend I took one baby step toward settlement.  We purchased our first item of furniture for the house: a new TV stand!  This is also our first TV stand together- all others were his or hers prior to cohabitation.

Since I haven't shown you any pictures of the house since we moved our stuff into it, here is what the living room looked like Saturday (and mostly still looks like).

Sorry, I couldn't resist using the pictures that included the furry models.

And for the OLD TV stand.  Its quite out of proportion with the TV.  In fact, its technically a coffee table- the equivalent actual TV stand is buried in the basement (both remnants of my 'bachelorette' pad).

Now for the NEW TV stand!  (Have I mentioned my love for HomeGoods lately?)

No, I didn't repaint the walls between pictures- the color just changes drastically with the changing light outside.  A bit more proportionate, right?  The TV and sound bar may get mounted on the wall... once I figure out a plan for the wall.  I am very pleased with the piece and I adore being able to hide the Xbox, cable box, and dvd player!

Bringing in the new TV stand just highlighted (to me at least) the other changes that need to be made in the room.

1st and foremost: the coffee table.  It takes up half the living room!  Ideally, I'd love to have 2 small upholstered, tufted benches, but Hubby doesn't like that idea.  Potentially 2 un-upholstered benches that would serve as extra seating when we need it...  Either way, we need something smaller than that monster in this space (although I still love that monster, its not in the right house :(  ).

2nd: CURTAINS!  I think for now I'll put up the brown grommet-top ones that we had in the apartment living room, but eventually this room needs something visually lighter.

3rd: end table.  The one between the couch and chair is fine- its the other that is an issue.  With the size of the chair and couch, the end table gets pushed past the doorway moulding (as you can see in the 1st image).  Something smaller and more stylized is in store.

Everything (except the new TV stand of course) in this space is subject to replacement if we find the perfect items.

New life for old stuff. pt 2

Ok, so to talk about what I planned to talk about yesterday before I got distracted and went on a separate rant... We don't plan on buying much furniture right when we move to the new house, but a new TV stand is a necessity.  After scouring the furniture store website I found a fantastic, vintage-inspired stand at Pottery Barn picture below).

Now for a back-story before I can continue:

Our current apartment is the first floor of a house built around 1900.  It's been totally and completely gutted and updated with the exception of the basement.  When we moved in, we were given half the basement (divided from the other tenant's half by a wall).  In our half the basement was a pile of old furniture which our landlord told us came with the house when he purchased it.  Knowing I was an interior designer, he told us we could take whatever of it we wanted.  I gave the pile a quick once-over and saw only a few bland chairs from the 70s and headboard.

Flash to 2 years later:

My parents were up the other weekend for the home inspection and my mom, remembering my landlords offer of furniture, dragged me down to peruse the pile.  Lo and behold, tucked in the corner was a buffet covered in cobwebs and enough dust to write a novel in.  Giving it a quick wipe-down, we brought it upstairs.

It bears a surprising resemblance to the Pottery Barn TV stand I was drooling over.  It needs a bit of love and refinishing, but has potential to be our new TV stand.  I'll make the final determination once we get it to the new house, but its definitely coming with us!  If it is chosen to be our new TV stand, in addition to a gleaming new finish, it will receive shelves inside to house the X-Box, DVR, and audio receiver.  Fantastic vintage find that's been literally right under my nose for the past 2 years!

I have far too much swirling in my head right now!   A new house provides me too many opportunities for creativity.  In order to first organize my thoughts before organizing all my  worldly possessions, I created a list of all the projects I'm planning for the house.  I will cross-off items as I complete them and post all the fun pictures on here!

I also planned to include more in this post, but I'm sure I'm losing your attention by now, so stay tuned for Part 3 tomorrow!

*image from Potterybarn.com