Recycled Entertainment Center

Our family room wall is big. Really big. We had a little TV stand with a TV mounted on it when we moved in and it worked fine. It just looked really small against the big wall. We kept our eyes open for things we could use to build an entertainment center.

Remember when we got that whole kitchen set from my grandpa's basement? At the same time, we were put in charge of preparing his house for an estate sale (he was moving to an assisted living center). Looking through all of their furniture, we found 2 matching bookcases. Light bulb when on in Dane's head (he's the mastermind of almost all of these projects). We brought them home and he went to work designing.

I painted the pieces white with the Americana chalk paint from Home Depot. It's a tad cheaper than other chalk paint and does the job great! No sanding, no priming, just paint right on. Love it. It ended up taking a lot more paint than I thought, so I had to buy like 5 of those little 8 oz jars. They sell the bigger size online, but I was in get 'er done mode so I just kept going back for more. I left the back piece alone and ordered some patterned contact paper from Amazon for a pop of color. However, once it came, it didn't stick well, and the color was hard to see. Bummer. So I ended up ordering a color of chalk paint Home Depot didn't have in stock called relic which is a dark gray. I. Love. It. It's dark, which in a white entertainment center against a light gray wall, is exactly the pop I was looking for.

Dane pulled two of the extra kitchen cabinets down from the garage (he hung all the extra ones in the garage for storage) and put an entertainment center together. I seriously don't know how he figures it all out, but he does. It was like putting a big puzzle together! He attached the two cabinets to the wall, hung the TV on a wall mount, and put the bookcases on either side and attached them, too! Then he added fancy little borders around the edges to make it feel cohesive.

I love the storage in the cabinets. We keep movies and games in them. I am still working on the decor on the bookcases. We went to Ikea and found a few frames and things that were cheap but cute. I searched our bookcase in our bedroom for cool looking books and books that remind us of Christ. I kept the bottom of the bookcase open for toys and found these amazing bins to hold toys--one for Brooklyn and one for Callie. I love them and love the pop of color.

This fits SO much better on that big wall and I love that almost every piece of it was recycled from old furniture. Hooray for not spending a whole bunch of $$ on a big statement piece in our house!!