Big Wood Reveal

I'm happy to announce that wood is in da house!  (It had been living out in the garage, after our madcap rush to acquire this piece.)  A couple of weekends back, my husband worked hard and got the family room ready for our wood credenza. And a few weeks before that, he spent the day out in the garage, using his manly tools to do all the custom modifications to the piece.  This post should really be written by him, as he did all the work and had the ideas on how a 50 year old credenza would work as a very modern  entertainment center, wireless and all. As usual, my contribution was having the vision of how it all should look, and saying, "make it happen!"  

Before our new vintage credenza could go in, he took off the old baseboards and ran speaker cable up against the floorboards, so that we could put the big subwoofer speaker back behind the sectional. Like certain guys of a certain era, he's an audiophile and spent a whole other day finessing the stereo sound quality.  (There will be no photos of that excitement.)  Then he had to size, trim, paint, and install the new baseboards.  He also painted the inside of the nook, where our previous big media center had gone. (Like the rest of the wall, it's Benjamin Moore's "Hibiscus.")

Here's a before shot, with the old media center pushed out from the wall. You can see a better, older "before" shot over here.

And here's how it looks now:

Previously, there were 9 drawers. Now there are 6 drawers and one cabinet, as my husband converted the far right set of drawers into a door, and placed shelving inside to hold the computer and stereo receiver:

Proof that they were all drawers...

...but now this side is a door.

Note the big square of plywood where the drawer fronts are all attached.

I think this picture is remarkable for what you do not see: 

No visible cables, cords, or wires  No speakers, either. 

The two small speakers and numerous cords are all sitting on this plywood "shelf" that was added to hold it all.

The computer router, power strips, and various magical parts are in the top middle drawer.  "Magical" being the wireless, RF infrared thing that reads the remote through the wood.

I'm very happy with how this vintage piece was converted for use in the 21st century, and also very happy with how it looks in the room.  Now I need to inject some color onto the wall.  I'm planning on replacing the starburst mirrow with a large piece of bright, colorful art.  I don't know what that will be yet.  Maybe when I have the piece, I'll also finally get around to using some black spray-paint on that brass trim on the fireplace.  That ugly thing, and the surrounding peachy tiles, is still my biggest pet peeve in the room, and maybe the whole house.

Oh, and as a sidenote: I put our old, massive entertainment center up for sale on Craigslist, and it sold within a couple of hours.  Score!

I'm linking up with Jules every Thursday as part of her 2012 William Morris Project.