Old Dresser/Buffet Turned TV Stand

We decided to remodel our living room over the summer. We took a week off to celebrate our one year anniversary, (you know, like a romantic kinda thing)…and what do I do? I over-loaded us with Pinterest things to attempt!

Here's a couple of pictures to get you quickly acquainted with our old living room set up…we'll call it "My 20-year-old-selfs apartment living room, 11 years after the fact." It's outdated, cluttered, and just not impressive.

This beast just had to go.

I can feel your judgement…cut me some slack.

We painted, then board and battened our walls, and threw out our old TV unit. I may or may not do a post for the board and batten. We knew we wanted to mount our TV to the wall, and I was torn between having floating shelves for the cable boxes, modem, and such or get a new TV stand all together. Knowing I didn't want to fish wires threw the wall to several different outputs…I decided we should get a new TV stand. After hunting for a week for a new stand, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing in my price range that I liked.

So of course, I took to Pinterest, not necessarily looking to fashion something myself, but to see what sort of living room set ups people were rocking in their abodes. It didn't take me long to stumble upon this DIY up-cycle. Well shit…I'll just add that to the long (unrealistic) list of nonsense I had planned for my week.

It took me maybe five minutes to find what I wanted on Craigslist, talk it down from $125 to $100, and we were on our way! There were a few cheaper ones, but I really wanted the doors…pretty doors are worth an extra $50, in my head. :)

It's she beautiful?

We got it home and...

-took off all the hardware

-wiped it all down

-sanded all the surfaces with a palm sander

-primed it 

Have a little helper.

-painted the body and drawers a Husky Grey (a Walmart brand greenish/greyish off white color)

-painted the top black, and the two empty drawer slots black, and the side of the drawers facing the slots black as well (didn't paint the back paneling, which I wish I had, and will probably do at some point)

-spray painted the hardware a dark metallic grey (Rustoleum 2X Metallic…LOVE it, want to paint everything else with this)

-let cure for 2 days, put wax coating on top (probably should do all of it, but I got lazy)

When I say 'cure' I mean we left it out in the rain for two days,
assuming it was ruined.

-reassemble

-measured the drawer slots and cut out two wood boards (out of left over wood from my headboard I made last year)

-stapled fabric (I had left over from my bench project) over the board

-tada!!

This all took about 10-12 hours of work, if you put it all together…but we stretched it out into a 4 day process. When all was said and done, it wasn't too difficult, and looks amazing. Far better than anything I could have purchased new for $120.

I LOVE how my living room looks now.

Isn't she more lovely?

 Of course, we needed an end table. Scored this piece off a FB sale sight for $10! She took to her transformation quite well. Even though they don't match, (I must have a thing for doors because I passed over an end table that had drawers and matched my stand), my living room looks fully coordinated. ;)