My New TV Stand, Part 2!

So here is where we left off in the dramatic transformation.  This sitting in the garage and me waiting on some inspiration.

And then I saw it.  It had been staring me in the face for months, but it took a while to put two and two together.  This is one of those wall decals, I got it on sale (plus coupon!) at Joann's.

I really wanted to try to get the same black & white, graphic feel.  So I searched google images until I found something I liked.  It was in the background of some picture.  So i took it and put it in photoshop, took out all the extra stuff (you know, the stuff that they actually wanted to show in the picture).  I measured the tv stand to get a rough idea of how big I needed to make the picture, I didn't write it down so I really don't remember... It was a pretty rough estimate anyways, I didn't want it to be perfect.

So I made my canvas size in photoshop that size and resized the image.  Then I printed it out on lots of pieces of paper and taped them together.

Then I had the conundrum of how to get the outline I just printed onto the wood to actually paint it...Then I saw it - I could transfer it using newspaper! Thank you livingwithlindsay!!

It came out really light...

So I traced over it with pencil to make it darker, so, you know, I could actually see it when I started painting!

When I did it on the doors, I had to kind of bend the paper around the curves to make it look consistent.  I bent it around the edges too, so it looks like the design goes all the way around the tv stand.

Then I painted in the lines using black acrylic paint and a small paintbrush.  Sometimes I missed and painted outside the lines, but since the edges are supposed to look a little funky I just made it look like part of the design instead of an oops.

Here's the base!

So I used spray sealer to seal it.  In retrospect, I probably should have used the kind you use when you stain a table, the kind you paint on.  Oh well.  It's all set up now, if I want to do it I'll have to wait until we decide to move the tv again.  So spray sealer it is!

So, do you remember when I said I sanded because I was afraid that the paint would slide off?  Well, apparently I didn't sand the front of one of the shelves very well.  I somehow got one tiny little nick in it and then this happened!

So I cut off the little piece of hanging paint, then lightly sanded and repainted it.  All is right in the world again.

Until...

So when you paint shelves...be careful about the drips on the edges...they make the shelf too wide for it's home.  More sanding!!

So it fit after sanding, which I hope was the last of the sanding for a while, cause, it's pretty tedious!!  I put the doors back on and put all the stuff back in.

Oh yeah, and we bought a new tv too.  It just happened to work out that we both got bonuses from work at the same time that I finished this project.  And what goes better on a $5 tv stand than a brand new HDTV LED TV!!

So there's the first step of my grand living room redo!!  Big things take time, at least that's what I'm telling myself.  Mostly they take money, and we just spent a lot of our money on a new TV.  Next on my list, displaying our wedding photos!!!