Craigslist Dresser to Entertainment Center (Our First Attempt at Shabby Chic)

Ever since we moved in to our new house (crazy that is has already been six months!), we have wanted to repurpose a dresser into an entertainment center. We finally found one we liked for under $50 on craigslist a couple of weeks ago and went to work. 

Unfortunately, I broke the first cardinal rule of furniture repurposing. I didn't take a 'before' picture. You will just have to imagine a brown dresser with gold handle drawer pulls. 

We took out all the drawers, took off the drawer pulls, filled the holes with putty, let it dry and sanded everything really well. Then we spray painted white primer on everything. 

Then we spray painted a coat of black. We were going to sand everything after we finished painting to give it a distressed look and we thought the black would give us some extra depth. 

Chris is the spray paint master!

We ran out of black before we got the whole thing painted, but it was alright because the main goal was to get all the nooks and crannies, which we did.

This color is a lot more blue than the spray paint can lid!

I got a little nervous that this color would not go well with our newly painted living room. 

I also got a little nervous because I got spray paint all over my hands, feet, face and hair! Ah! Thankfully it all came off with a loofah and some scrubbing. 

I missed getting pictures of the in-between steps. We sanded it down after the paint dried and then applied a dark walnut stain. We also drilled holes and bought new drawer pulls. I LOVE how the color turned out.

Since we were going to be putting electronics in the dresser, Chris wanted to install a fan so things didn't overheat. He got THIS ONE from amazon.

He is cutting out a hole in the back for the fan to go. 

We wanted to take out four of the drawers and put in shelves to put the electronics on. So we got some MDF boards that we cut and painted black. 

I also painted the inside of the dresser where we were going to put the shelves, as well as the side of the drawers so everything would blend in once it was all put together. 

Much better. 

He installed the shelves with wood glue. 

It is finally ready for action!

Here we have everything installed and ready to go. 

I am very pleased with how it turned out and couldn't be happier with the color and how it looks in our newly painted living room! 

For fun, here are a couple of before and after pictures of our living room.

Before. 

After. 

Before.

After. 

Before. 

After. Cleaning up the living room also helped in this one.

I am very excited to finally have some color in our living room. We have a lot of things we still want to do in there. We want to get yellow curtains, get different pillows, put up artwork, get a desk to replace the dining room table that is currently next to the fireplace and get a rug. Oh yeah, and get Bowdon a new dog bed. So... we are just getting started. But progress makes better and getting the entertainment center done and paint on the walls gave us the push we needed to get us moving in the right direction. Home decorating is not a strength of mine. haha In the previous house we were in, it took me 2 1/2 years to put up my first piece of art. So, it might take us awhile but I will definitely show you pictures as we make progress in the room :).

Do you love to decorate? Have you ever repurposed a piece of furniture? Was it a lot more work than you originally thought? Would you do it again?