That student budget thing we were living on really got to me. I guess we're still living on it. We got a new TV a while ago, (time to join 2010, summer!) after not having one for about a year. And this new TV had no home in our house for a while until I found this cabinet.
In 2 pieces!?! It was a sawed-off hutch that also had a removable base, which is what you see here.
The top of the hutch was simply cut right off before I bought it, but it left these huge, ugly grooves in the top. I found it at a thrift store (yet again) and a lady who watched me buy it said, "Oh, I'd never buy that thing. But she's young and ambitious." I thought, "why yes, I am. And a little bit crazy, but that's always served me well." I loved being referred to as "young." I like to think I am. I wasn't about to reveal my true age. I won't here, either.
This baby had tons that needed fixing, hence, the "ambitious" part of the above comment. It was missing a hinge on one of the middle doors. You already saw that it was in two pieces and had gouges in the top.
The glass in this door was broken.
And some of the moulding on the base had come off, but we still had the piece.
Step 1: get the broken glass out of the door. I thought this would be easy. NOT SO! I was very wrong. First, I had to remove the wood that held in the glass. Not hard at all. Gloves and putty knife were all that I needed.
Then came the glass, which was actually GLUED in! Oh nooooo! Glue? So, I researched how to remove glass from cabinet doors and came across some pretty great websites. One said to use a heat gun to melt the glue and then pull out the glass. Ahh, I don't have a heat gun.
But I have a hair dryer! And it worked!
Slowly, but 2 hours (yes, a heat gun would have been much, MUCH faster!) I got the silicone to soften enough to pull out the glass. Halleluiah! After the glass was out, I went to Lowe's and had them cut a new piece of glass for me, costing a whole 6 bucks! And it took no time. They cut it for me right there in the store on a really cool wall mounted glass cutter. I was impressed.
I filled in the grooves with wood putty and let it dry FOREVER! (Can you tell this project was getting long? Maybe I was
too ambitious. I am learning.)
Primed everything. And somewhere in there put the molding back on the base.
Then painted! I also used old hardware I had to replace the existing hardware.
It's a great size for that wall.
And for the TV. Thanks to B for mounting that.
Tada! Pretty insane project, but it's done and was a total of $41 out of pocket. We won't count up elbow grease or cost of labor hours spent. But all in all, not too bad. Don't know if I'll do that again, though.
I hate lamp shades. They are so hard to figure out. What I've concluded about them is to never, ever buy them separately from the lamp. Or to add blue flowers. Which is the mistake that happened here. I had a perfectly good drum lamp shade. Plain, but good. Here's the problem: I always think plain is just not enough. In this case, it should have been. So, after I added the blue flowers, the shade looked a little too wedding-cake-ish. Not going to fly on the lamp. Not at all! So I had to laboriously pull (rip) each fabric flower, (which had been attached very well!), off of the shade. It left horrible pock marks of hot glue all over the shade where the flowers were attached. See here:
Poor lamp shade. It was still very useful, but I just couldn't leave the hot glue unattended. (You never should. Says so right on the hot glue label.)
Nice and clean. Much better.
