Media Room

Since I moved in, this room was one giant catch all. It had my desk so it was technically a very large study with random furniture, rugs and other stuff that needed to be donated. I decided I wanted to start tackling this room next because this room gave me so much anxiety with all the stuff in it. My boyfriend has a HUGE TV screen and I thought a media room/office would be great for this space, plus since it's upstairs it would provide a TV up there for the kids to watch while they play.

Of course, my first step was the pre-fab cabinets from Home Depot. These are so convenient and end up being close to the costs of the wood I would need for the project plus there's no labor on my end of building them from scratch. The space I wanted to fill was about 170 inches, since it was such a long space I didn't want to do just a straight line of cabinets so I decided to have the middle bunch stick out. I used 4 30 in and 2 15in cabinets for this space. Once I had that design down, I built the base using 2x4's. Having learned from my previous built ins downstairs I knew I wanted some overhang of the cabinets for a toe kick, so I built my base short enough to account for some overhang with trim. Once the base was built, I added 1x3's to the front to make it look more finished.

Once I had the cabinets situated on top of the base, I extended the studs from the wall with 2X4's and screwed those into the cabinets. I decided here to paint the cabinets before I started the countertop. This was my first time doing a countertop. I added a bunch of 2x4's to sit on top of the cabinets and attached the plywood to those. I have a smaller SUV so I used three sheets of 1/2 in plywood. I used a washer to trace the wall on the plywood since most walls aren't straight, then I cut that line with my jigsaw. I traced the other end of the plywood where it lined up with my cabinets and cut straight with my table saw. For the seams, I used wood glue, then sanded over it before it dried. I added 1x2's to the front of the plywood to make the countertop appear thicker (this is where the 2x4's I laid out on top of the cabinets come in handy). Once ready, I nailed everything in, sanded and stained.

I used Billy bookcases plus the extender units for the bookcases. Once built, I attached them to the studs using the L brackets provided and added 1x2's to trim out the front and decorative trim for the sides to make it look more custom. The Ikea shelves sit back from the frame about 1/8 of an inch so I cut down MDF to make 1/8 shims so the trim on the shelves would be flush to the trim on the front side of the bookcases.

I then added baseboards to the top of the bookcases to give more thickness to the crown molding and then I did the crown molding. This was the most frustrating part because I was SO close to being finished with the project but man, crown is a bi***. There are so many tutorials online I watched, made guides and even bought a guide from Lowe's to help me. In the end, once painted it looked good. The hardest part was measuring the length of the crown I needed from the outer or inner angles. I ended up cutting the angles separately then straight cutting the middle. Not ideal, but once painted you can't really tell and my brain does not math so this was the best alternative I could come up with without spending more money on crown molding.

Once everything was put together, it was time to caulk, wood fill and sand. I painted it Kendall Charcoal by Benjamin Moore mostly because I had leftover from my dining room. I had no idea what I was going to do with the accent wall behind the TV so I decided to skim coat and use some scrap wood I had to make a design. I really didn't want to spend more money and didn't want to just paint it without any detail. I added scrap 1x4's and 1x3's to the back, caulked and painted.

I donated most of the items that were in that room so it quickly went from a catch all to a very empty room. The TV and furniture will come in August but for right now, I'm very happy that I can leave the doors to this room open since it's not such an eye sore anymore.

Links:

Cabinets:

• https://www.homedepot.com/p/Hampton-Bay-30-in-W-x-12-in-D-x-30-in-H-Assembled-Wall-Kitchen-Cabinet-in-Unfinished-with-Recessed-Panel-KW3030-UF/325134504 (4)

• https://www.homedepot.com/p/Hampton-Bay-15-in-W-x-12-in-D-x-30-in-H-Assembled-Wall-Kitchen-Cabinet-in-Unfinished-with-Recessed-Panel-KW1530-UF/302969882 (2)

Stain Combo: General Finishes White Wash and Antique Oak (about 4 parts Antique Oak and 1 part white wash)

Billy bookcase:

• https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/billy-bookcase-black-oak-effect-30477331/ (2)

• https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/billy-height-extension-unit-black-oak-effect-60477358/ (2)