A new focal point-tv stand

***Since I have added this to my living room and proudly sharing the pics with people I am so happy that everyone raves about it! One person thought that I bought it for....thousands! WHAT???

All decorators seem obsessed with making something other than the tv a focal point in a living space, but let's face it the tv is a focal point in most homes today. And with all of the additional components it can become an unruly mess quickly!

That is exactly what happened to me. My idea for our main living room (my room) was to keep it simple, nice and simple. So here is what ended up happening to my nice and simple tv area :(

So here is the plan:
Take this awesome china cabinet ($100/ craigslist), and transform it into a great tv stand. My mom thought I was crazy for wanting to totally modify this piece when she saw the pic since it looks pretty nice. But in person, it is still good looking, but not so much ;) Really it was pretty beat up and my mom was excited to see what I would do with it (Love ya mom).

The idea is to remove all of the doors (top and bottom), remove the mirror on the back/top, remove the glass side/top and replace with wood slates, remove the half shelf in the bottom and replace with a full depth shelf, then of course sand, and paint. What color you ask...Turquoise! Yay, so excited!!

I haven't been this ancy to start a project in a long time.

And so it begins...we started by taking everyting off that we didn't want and got it out of our cramped/messy garage. Then I decided to start on the bottom so we can go ahead and put it in its new place asap!

It is so hot in AZ right now the best bet was to work in the garage with the door closed (I know it sounds weird, but trust me it is waaaaay cooler) so I needed a stripper that would not totally knock me out. So I used Citristrip Gel, I still kept the garage door cracked and a fan going to keep the air moving.

Once it was all stripped and sanded I painted the base black. As for the turquoise I had decided not to completely paint the piece in turquoise I decided instead to dry brush it for a weathered look. Once the black was dry I started the dry brushing (I didn't sand in between coats because all of the brush strokes are disguised by the dry brushing ;)  Yay! One less thing to do.

The final result is AWESOME!! The cabinet that I had wanted to build from scratch would have cost us around $700 to build, and I recently saw an enteretainment center similar to our finished project and it was listed as $2500. What, what!!! Are you kidding me?? So here is the break down of the total that I spent:

• China Cabinet (craigslist)- $100
• Gas in my brother's truck to pickup the cabinet- $25
• Wood (shelf, side inserts, 2 pieces of plywood for back of both pieces)- $75
• Paint (I alrerady had the black paint I used as the base color and since I dry brushed the turquoise I didn't need much...2 small samples of Valspar)- $6
• Drawers pulls- $24

Total spent $230 (I already had, sand paper, stripper, wood filler, etc.)

Checkout the final look!!

Ok let's see this again....