Up-cycle A TV Unit: 101
One thing that bugs me about today’s retail furniture market is that it is quite difficult to find quality cheap furniture. (Trust me, I can find it. But sometimes a person just needs a quickie!)
A lot of furniture is being made with many, many short cuts. Like, drawers without runners, running wood-on-wood; or drawer fronts stapled or even just glued to it’s support sides;
shonky ‘provincial’ or ‘rustic’ distressing that’s just bad craftsmanship turned cheap money-maker. Don’t even get me started on chipboard veneers and MDF sold as quality furniture !
And not to mention the price tag is still high for all this.
Funnily enough, I have this little birdie that sits on my shoulder and says, “Don’t pay for that crap! You can make that.” So…I give things a crack. Sometimes it doesn’t work, yet lately, it has.
Thus we enter the world of up-cycling, renovating, building whatever you call it. I am crusading, YES CRUSADING, against poor form and putting my dollars where I want them not where retailers tell me I should.
A brave 6th grade teacher once told me, “Don’t settle for second best.”
As most women, I do a lot more than what I put on. I hide a little, I push accomplishments to the side, I congratulate others and feel unworthy of merit myself.
So, this is a little taste of what I actually get up to. You might do things like this and not mention it too. But maybe you should. The world might start to see women differently, and so would women.
The Project : Up-cycled TV Unit : Hampton’s Style
I scoured the stores for a cheap TV unit and I knew it had to be white and it needed to fit into my current living room which has two bohemiath sized white Provincial Style Manhattan Bookshelves. They are distressed and fit in with my old world, transitional and industrial space. Unluckily for me, no retail store had anything like I was after and all I could find was an MDF version with 10mm drawer thicknesses costing a bucket-load from FREEDOM. I said to myself that day, oh no you don’t.
I bought a solid pine, dovetail drawer, mahogany stained TV unit from Early Settler for $299. It had horrible (yet quality) handles but the structure was perfect.
I gave it a quick sand, and I mean quick, then watered down slightly a Pascol primer, sealer, undercoat. I watered it down because primer is really thick and I wanted to make a smooth finish without continual sanding. It lapped on quite well and made the paint stick = job done.
I bought a tin of Valspar’s test pot from Masters which is a really good quality acrylic wall paint (yes, not a trim paint), and watered this down a little also (Valspa is Wattyl, so is Pascol, so don’t freak out about Masters leaving). This really did ensure the finish was super slick. If you are worried about what people say about wall paint on furniture…don’t! I have watched too many tutorials and worked for Valspar myself and know that their paint is
really this good. I also painted my toddler’s toy box in acrylic paint here and it has not aged a day!
I did put a couple of coats of Feast and Watson furniture wax for some added protection but I believe you can also use a polyurethane. I tend to find that even though I have a toddler, he mainly scuffs walls and skirting rather than anything else.
The drawer handles I replaced with antique brass knobs from Early Settler. So, all up, it cost me around $342. Of course, if you already have a solid TV unit, you might be able to do this without purchasing a new unit and save some dollars.
If you want to check out a video of the steps, watch below and let me know what you think.
Do you do projects like this? Do you want to do something like this but something stops you from trying? Let me know!
Or if you need help sourcing your own furniture, leave me a comment.