Living Room Storage DIY

So, my living room is kinda broken up into two areas because of how we have the couches/TV set up.  The "TV section" has been pretty much done (although I might do an accent wall in the next few months) but the other space has been pretty bland.  Eventually my gallery wall will be the focal point on the one complete wall in that area and I decided to get a table of sorts to put along that wall.
I searched on Craigslist forever for an affordable sofa table (you know the long, skinny ones people put behind couches) but nothing was popping up.  Then I decided to potentially take the plunge and buy a new one.  Well, those fuckers are expensive, so that wasn't gonna happen.  Then one day I was browsing the home section at Target and I stumbled upon those cube-shaped storage units and decided one of those would be perfect, so I bought a 3x3 one.

This is the picture from the box, lol

You should know me well enough by now to understand I wasn't just going to leave it as is (wouldn't that be silly?).  Step one in making it something I would actually use in my house was painting it since normal wood veneer is lame.  I chose to paint it with Martha Stewart's "Glacier" paint.  Since it was a piece of furniture I chose high gloss, and all I did to prep it was prime it, since it was brand freaking new.

All the pieces

I used a mini foam roller for the paint and it worked like a charm.

Because I can't help but make every project into a huge production in order to achieve my vision, I obviously wasn't done there either. 

These cube thingies have flimsy backs to like half of the storage cubes so I figured I would do something with those.  Since they come folded in half, it would have been a total pain in the ass to try and paint them, so I had to come up with something a little more creative.  I ended up settling on plastering pretty scrapbook paper to them (which was perfect because each cube is 12x12 just like scrapook paper is).

I found a stack of paper that I thought worked well for the project and picked out 5 patterns that I liked.

Personal Photos


Then I through some Mod Podge (the glossy kind - oh how I love Mod Podge) on the fake piece of wood and placed the paper on it.  To make sure there weren't any bubbles or anything, I used the Mod Podge brand decoupage tools, and finished it off by painting a thin layer of Mod Podge over the paper to 100% seal it to the fake wood. Plus it made it shiny, which made it look fancier than just a piece of scrapbook paper, lol.

Personal Photo

Considering I had never actually done this with scrapbook paper before, it turned out pretty awesome.  And, I couldn't be happier with how the storage unit as a whole turned out!

Personal Photo

Personal Photo

The added storage will be super useful once the baby arrives, but for now I would like to find 1 or 2 things to put on top for visual interest.  I've been lusting over these candlesticks turned candy jars I found on Pinterest, but I've yet to find any reasonably price candlesticks for the project, but I think these would be the perfect touch.

Via Pinterest


Once I find the right candlesticks, I'll probably do mine in yellow, and actually put up all the pictures for my gallery wall the "other" section of the living room will look much better.

What do you think of my refinished storage unit?  Or do you just think I'm crazy for refinishing a brand new piece of furniture?

Until next time...