DIY Storage/Entertainment Center

This was such a fun project!!

I had this idea in my head of what I wanted for playroom storage and a little entertainment center. After shopping around, looking at cube storage and different shelving ideas... I finally realized I wanted storage that actually HID all of the toys, and could still double as our entertainment center.

Since it's me, and I don't seem to like the 'easy road'... I decided to take my idea- and bring it to life myself!

I was going to have to piece this thing together, and create exactly what I wanted on my own!

...the challenge, and the creativity behind it, was pretty exciting.

So I knew I wanted to use kitchen upper cupboards, since the size was perfect for what I was looking for. I started by looking around on craigslist and local donation warehouses for old ones I could refinish... no such luck. They had some, but they were pricier than I wanted.

So my best option was to buy 3 new, double, unfinished oak cupboards from Menards, each being $85.

I used my Wagner Flexio paint sprayer and primed, and painted them white.

(1 coat of primer, 3 coats of white)

Then I started working on the "counter".

I bought 2 unfinished pine boards and stained them using my dark walnut stain.

I did one coat of stain, and then used a water based varnish to seal them.

To get the cupboards in place on the wall I had to remove the baseboard trim from that part of the wall.

Then we made rectangle "bases" out of scrap 2x4's so the cupboards would be lifted up enough to trim them out and give them more of a built-in look.

2x4 rectangle bases

Once we had the bases done, we just set the cupboards on them and got the them all in place on the wall. We screwed them to the wall, then I worked on caulking all of the cracks & seams, while Aaron cut the trim pieces to trim it all out.

Once we had that all in place and trimmed out- it was time to figure out how we would get our pine boards secured on top.

We decided to just use smaller nails and a regular old hammer, and hammered them down in place. The nails are almost impossible to see... you really have to look to try and find them.