A Stronger TV Shelf

Last week I discussed the plans for our updated basement media centre – and today I’m here to share how I was able to accomplish the first task of reinforcing the shelving unit.  You might remember that the top shelf was sagging due to the weight of the TV?  Well, we now have a stronger TV shelf (and it’s been painted too!).

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Here’s a photo of what we had been living with to remind everyone what the starting point was:

I had the Husband carry the whole shelf unit into the garage, and then we brought the leftover white shelves from our old kitchen pantry in there too.  If you’re a super stalker reader, you probably recognize the shelves from when I shared images of our living and dining room.  They were in the corner by the sliding door, and we had finally brought them into the basement right before Christmas last year.

Unfortunately, the shelves were just under 4″ too short to reach across the length, so I had to add little pieces to fill in the gaps.  I also flipped the shelving unit over, so that there was added strength with those cross pieces (which apparently we didn’t notice when we setup the TV shelf in the first place).

So… the plan was to build this reinforced TV shelf in the garage, but then it got cold so I had to move everything indoors!  I placed a heavy paint bucket on the bottom (was the top) shelf to get rid of the sagging.  Then glued (and nailed) the cut-to-size pieces of wood around the inside perimeter of the shelving unit.

True story: we actually found this shelf (which was originally white) on the side of the road when we were moving into our house.  We needed something to hold the TV, and it was the perfect size – so we took it (one person’s trash is another person’s treasure!).  However, that did mean that some of the pieces were installed a bit wonky in the first place.

I did patch the areas and gaps with wood filler as best as I could – but some areas were kind of impossible to line up evenly.

I caulked the inside seams, then gave all the (sanded) wood filler and caulking a coat of prime.

I had bought Fusion Mineral paint in Champness (you can order some online here) to use specifically for this cabinet, and once the prime was dry I gave everything a coat or two of paint.  It’s a made-in-Canada acrylic paint that Melanie from Lost and Found Décor highly recommends for furniture.

You’ll be seeing some more pops of this blue in the basement as I slowly makeover this space.  For now the stronger TV shelf was the perfect large guinea pig for the paint, and I’m super happy with the results (I used the same paint on my Metrie Ikon which I will talk about more in-depth here soon).

The pantry shelves that I added to the inside were 3/4″ wide, so now everything is much thicker and more substantial.  The top shelf will no longer sag under the weight of the TV, so we don’t have to worry about a potential crash in the future!

We also have more space in the room now that the old DVD cabinet has been moved (although the mark in the carpet is still there!) so everything looks much neater.

Yes, if you do look at the cabinet closely there are lots of imperfections – but I figured that I can’t complain much since it was free.  In fact, the shelves that I used to reinforce it were free too, so I only really spent money on the paint (and some more brad nails since the two sizes we had did not work).  But we still have leftovers of both of those!

In the end, I’m really happy with how this (now) stronger TV shelf turned out, especially because it was super cost-effective AND I got to practice some more DIY furniture makeover skills.  It also adds a nice pop of colour to our basement, and I can’t wait until everything down here is freshly painted.

And, since you made it all the way to the end – I figured I’d show a sneak peek of what the stronger TV shelf looks like now that it has our stuff back on (with the custom painted Ikea storage boxes that I will share next week too!).