Before and After: Mid-century built-in media cabinet

I love a good Before and After, don’t you?

Months ago, I found these two mid-century wood pieces at the local Habitat for Humanity Restore. (One is sitting on top of the other in the before photos.) I’m not even sure what to call them. Credenza-like in shape but they were double sided built-ins during their former life.

VERY dusty, I nearly walked right on by but I loved the clean lines. I believe they had been at the Restore for quite some time as they had been reduced down to nearly free. I think I paid $20.

Fast-forward 18 months later!

How we did it:

I definitely should have taken photos but hopefully you can follow. We sliced the 2 double-sided cabinets in half length-wise which gave us four single-sided cabinets that are about 13″ deep. We used one for the top and one for the bottom of our media cabinet. The third was cut into smaller sections to create the two pieces that surround the tv. That left the fourth section unused. See below for where it went. We added some 1×2 spacers between the cabinets to give us a height that better fit the TV, and used thin Luan board to finish the vertical areas. All that new wood was finished with gray stain.

We are so happy with the result. Exactly what we need to hold all the TV components, kids games, DVDs, etc. It only sits out from the wall about a foot so it doesn’t take up much space.

When slicing the two credenzas lengthwise we had 4 pieces to work with. After using three for the media cabinet we had one piece leftover. It works great in the adjoining work area to hold the kids school-books and craft supplies.