Finally that ugly thing is gone!

I haven't cared much for Steve's TV stand since the day he bought it. In the past six months or so, my feelings for it had devolved from what I'd describe as vague annoyance to nagging contempt.


(this is the only picture I could find of it - it was taken in our previous rental house)

Steve and I looked at new TV stands, but we found them to be either just as industrial and ugly or ridiculously expensive. So we decided to convert a cheap buffet or dresser of some sort to get the look of "real" furniture we desired.

We looked at Salvation Army and Goodwill multiple times and didn't find anything suitable. Finally, on a rainy day in Oakland, killing time with friends J and Eric, we found the perfect thing:


Anytime we show it to someone they say the same thing. "My mom/dad/grandma/grandpa had something just like that!" It is, of course, a console table designed for a record player.

The side cabinets held records.

The center had a sturdy shelf for the record player with a hinged lid. The front panel slides out to show a cabinet that, I assume, was for a speaker.

We go the piece cheap we presume because the backing was so badly damaged.

The rest of it was in pretty good shape though, and felt very sturdy. The date stamp reads "Feb 15 1962."

It was missing the original shelves for each of the side cabinets, so Steve measured out and cut us some new ones.

We then attached an iron-on veneer edging to make the plywood edges of our new shelves (and the existing center shelf) look more finished.


I stained the new shelves (and the existing center shelf) to match the existing wood and then we slid in our new glass panel for the center cabinet. Steve's receiver and our Reply TV need line-of-sight to operate remotely, so replacing the existing solid panel with glass made the most sense to us. My parents took us to a great stained glass place in Orange County to pick it out. We selected a wavy glass to give it a little more visual interest. For Christmas, my parents took us to pick out a new rug for our living room. I loved this funky one... Steve wasn't entirely convinced at first, but he likes the look of it now that everything's put together.


We got rid of Steve's giant old CRT TV (the thing must have weighed 250 lbs... it was probably amusing to watch me attempt to help Steve take it out to the truck). We brought down our little TV from the bedroom to use for now. Even though we have the funds (and he has the wife-ly green light), Steve can't decide on which new TV to get. We may have a new one eventually.

Some things never change, though. Gotta love that tangle of cords.