TV Stand Redo

Another project that we accomplished within the last few months was the redo of our TV stand.

Before and After

I had bought this buffet turned TV stand on Craigslist a few months after we moved into our house. It was a very interesting minty green color with some polyurethane on it that had turned a little brown. So it was a green-with-brown-streak beauty!

I had purchased it with the intention to repaint it, but it was put right to use, holding our TV until I had the time to start the project. The walls in our family room are light blue, so it really looked like we were trying to decorate for Easter all year long with all our pastels going on. To get this TV stand looking like I wanted it to, it would need to be stripped of its paint, sanded, and then repainted. Honestly, I had no idea what I was getting myself into...
 

My very helpful husband taking all the doors and hardware off.

The worst part by far was the stripping. I had never stripped anything before, and I will definitely think twice before I choose to strip the paint off anything else.

I used this Citristrip paint stripper.

It has a very nice, citrusy scent (hence the name) and I'm sure is much more pleasant than regular, harsh paint stripper.

I covered the entire surface with the stripper and let it sit for a few hours.

When I came back to it to start the stripping, it was really very easy to get the paint off of the large flat surfaces (i.e. the top). The rest of it was a little challenging with all the grooves and corners. It also got kind of difficult because the paint and stripper that came off was very gooey and messy and would stick to my scraper and my gloves. It was just pretty annoying and gross...

Eventually, though, I got all the paint off good enough that I figured I could either sand the little bits of paint off or sand it down good enough to be painted over. (Sorry I didn't take a picture of it after it was stripped and/or sanded.)

We had decided to take the two drawers out of the middle so we could put our receivers and things in the cubbys. Previously we had an ugly little black table that I found at Goodwill that sat next to the TV stand that we put all those components on.

This is the temporary table that held our TV while I was redoing the real one.
And that's the little black table that hung out next to it, holding our components.

Trent made a nice little shelf to put where the top drawer used to be and we filled some places around the shelves with wood filler to make it look like there was supposed to be shelves there all along.

 

After that dried, I was able to start sanding.

 

Originally I wanted to stain the top of the TV stand and paint the bottom a whitish color (called Honeymilk by Valspar) but after I got the top sanded, it was clear to see that this was a very cheap piece of furniture. The top and sides were made out of something that resembled plywood and the fancy shmancy legs are made out of some sort of plastic material, so that meant that staining the top was out of the picture and I'd just be painting the whole thing the white color.

 

 

I painted on two coats of paint all over it and then, after letting it sit for a day, covered it with two coats of Minwax Polycrylic Protective Finish in satin. This kind is supposed to stay clear and not eventually leave brown streaks.

 

 

After letting it all dry overnight again, we moved it in the house and put all the hardware back on it. We kept all the original hardware because it is actually pretty. I just had to clean it up a bit. 

Trent hooked all the electronics back up (because that's his area of expertise) and now we've got a nice looking TV stand and not one that looks like we're trying to decorate for Easter.

 

It feels so good to have that project finished finally!

Next Someday I've gotta figure out the gallery wall I have planned for the wall the TV is on!