We got a new TV recently. When the husband and I set it on our old particle-board TV stand, the flimsy piece of furniture gave a huge shudder - it couldn't take the weight! Immediately, I started looking for a replacement.
Bless my sweet mother, she collaborated with me to find an antique piece to repurpose before my husband could buy another "modern" particle-board TV stand. For some reason, I'm obsessed with little drawers right now. I had an old card catalogue in mind, but after a full day of searching through my mom's favorite store, we found nothing that quite matched my vision. As a last ditch effort, we stopped by Cornerstone Antiques. There we found this beauty:
The label read, "Monterey Hardware Store," which I have yet to track down. However, I knew immediately it must be mine. The measurements for our appliances and the new TV base were tight, but certainly do-able. This piece looks like it was pulled from under a hardware store counter and given a new recycled plywood back and solid oak top. Some of the drawers were a bit ragged on the edges. It features not only 6 rows of mixed-width drawers, but also unmatched porcelain knobs and labels and hardware pieces still glued/stapled to the drawers. There is so much history in this piece!
With the help of my husband, we came up with a plan of attack. We took out the top row of drawers (please don't send me hate-mail!) and knocked out all but one of the dividers for our electronics. On the side of our receiver, we completely removed the back to accommodate the tight fit.
For the other, we used a keyhole drill to create a hole, through which we passed the cords for our dish box and Blu-Ray player. Some of the drawers removed were used to replace some of the more worn and fragile drawers on the bottom.
This project took only an hour or so of our afternoon, but the visual impact in our living area is stunning! Despite my concern about the measurements of our electronics and the narrow depth of our new TV console, everything fit so perfectly that it must have been mean to be.
As an added bonus, the red tones in the original stain pick up the colored speaker covers on either side:
It raises our television about 1.5 feet, but it's a very comfortable viewing level. We've had the new TV console in place for a little over a month, and I am still in love with it. It's such an interesting piece with tons of character and history!
