DIY Built-In Cabinet Transformation–Part 1

We’ve been in this house about five months now and since day one our living room has been a real humdinger. If you follow along on IG you might have seen all the times I rant about how I just can’t seem to figure out a good furniture layout in the room that makes sense and still allows us to relax in the space and watch TV. Now I know some of you don’t care about having a TV in your living room or great room, but we do. I mean, what’s better than curling up on the couch and watching a good football game? Or watching Home Alone by the fireplace at Christmas time? That’s a simple joy of life in my opinion. Anyway, our living room just doesn’t have a great spot for a TV. It can’t go above the mantle because that’s way too tall, can’t go on the wall of windows, and so that leaves the corner of the room or this huge wall that has a built-in cabinet. The cabinet probably seems like the obvious choice, but it’s not that simple.

See the TV over there in the right side corner??! This is one way I set the room up a few months ago….Pretty, but can’t comfortably watch TV.

So this cabinet was originally built to house a huge fish tank–it passes all the way through to my office and it even has sliding pocket doors. Pretty cool right?! But unfortunately not a super functional spot for a TV. The previous owners told me they tried to put a TV in that pocket, but the sound wasn’t good and it just didn’t look right. (You can see where we tried to mount the TV in that corner….that wasn’t working very well!)

After talking through all the options, like removing the wall completely, putting the TV on top of the cabinet, or replacing this built in with a proper media cabinet, we finally settled on the easiest and most cost effective solution: close in the pocket with a false wall. A simple $50 fix that just might solve all my design woes with this space…

We started by creating a frame inside the pocket that the false wall could be attached to. Since we want to mount our frame TV to the wall, it needs to be super sturdy and strong.

Once that was in place, we were able to nail in a heavy board that was cut to size and fit perfectly in the pocket.

Next up is to paint, add caulking, attach the frame TV mount, and drill a round hole all the cords can go through from the back side of the board. Stay tuned to se how this turns out!!