$75 Entertainment Center and Homemade Mod Podge

I've mentioned that I'm cheap. Well, years ago, we needed some kind of entertainment center. I bought a plain, black shelving unit from Wal-mart for $25. The back panel was atrocious! Cheap, cardboard with fold lines running down it? Ugh! So, I tore up an old book and decoupaged the backing with wallpaper paste. Years later, when we moved to a larger house, I purchased two more shelves and did the same. I wish I would have made a frame on the back to hold the shelves together, because if you look closely, you can see the gaps between them. Oh well -- I'll just add it to my to do list (ha!)

My favorite parts of the "entertainment center" are the locker baskets and hidden shelf. The locker baskets were an incredible score from the school where I teach. Years before I started there, the janitor rescued all the locker baskets from the trash when the school redid the locker rooms. She had stacks of them in her garage and gave me over a dozen! Cha-ching! I love those things! The hidden shelf is just made by installing two of the shelves very close together, then hanging napkins down to hide the gap. Our Xbox and Wii are hiding out in that little hidey hole. In all honestly, it stays wide open most of the time, but when company comes a-knocking and I freak out, I can act like we're all sophisticated and have no visible gaming systems.

P.S. If I had it to do over again, I would use homemade Mod-Podge instead of wallpaper paste:

Homemade Mod Podge

1 part Elmer's Glue All
1 part water

- Stir together and brush on in place of Mod Podge. Store in a sealed jar.


Linked to Kammy's Korner Trash 2 Treasure.