Big Box Store Furniture Makeover: Matching Media Cabinets With Paint
A few months ago I painted a beat up media cabinet for much needed storage in my living room (also on Hometalk under Blue Grey Chalk Painted Media Cabinet). There he sat all alone on one side of the fireplace. I decided he needed a matching mate for the bare space on the opposite side. I hunted Craigslist for a month to no avail. I then turned my search to the big box stores. I didn't want to spend much and I wanted to get as close to same media cabinet as possible! Chalk paint was going to transform whatever piece of furniture I found so that the new cabinet would blend with the room.
After searching for weeks I finally found a media cabinet, on sale even :)!! The 10 Spring Street Hinsdale 2-Door with Center Shelves Console Cabinet, on Walmart's website, would work out almost perfect! They actually had a few different media cabinets and other smaller cabinets that were a very similar style to what I had. This cabinet comes in 4 different colors, which although very stylish, didn't go with my living room decor. I already knew going into this cabinet search that I would be painting whatever cabinet I purchased the same color as the one I already had. So it didn't really matter what color the cabinet was. The white cabinet was the cheapest at $150, had great reviews and matched my other cabinet very closely. It was more money than I wanted to spend, but I wasn't sure I'd be able to find another used look-alike media cabinet unless I scoured craigslist everyday for 10 years. So I bit the bullet and bought it.
Here he is all put together minus the doors. I must say that this was the easiest to put together of all the big box store furniture pieces I have bought in the past.
A few days later I mixed up some chalk paint using my recipe with blue grey paint (At Peace by Dutch Boy) and got to work. I had to paint three coats for some reason, possibly too runny of a mixture on my part, who knows. That's the risk you take when using homemade chalk paint and I'm OK with the occasional hiccup if I'm saving money and getting a custom color chalk paint by making it myself. Right when I finished with the chalk painting the cabinet we moved him to his home in the living room so that my boyfriend could hook up his Playstation (he was seriously going through withdrawal). I glazed the cabinet right in the living room with my glaze from my Rustoleum cabinet restorations kit and damp cheesecloth to match the other media cabinet on the other side of the fire place. Here's a pic of me brushing the glaze on.
Here's a pic of me wiping the glaze off with damp cheesecloth. The wipe down process is just like cleaning ;). I took a sanding sponge and lightly sanded the edges of the top to match the other cabinet as well. Their tops were very similar in color so I didn't have to do anything else after that but clear coat and call it a day.
I think the media cabinets match up pretty good! Overall for this project I only spent what the cabinet cost, $150. Not bad! To see the complete tutorial along with lots more pictures check out my blog!
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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2 of 6 comments
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You did a wonderful job. Looks great! I love to decorate too ; )
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I love the color of the paint. It looks almost a light periwinkle color but it could be the lighting I also like that the cabinets are not just alike; instead, they are coordinated to go together. Great job!
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