Bookshelf to Media Console

We did not buy a TV for three whole months after we bought our house. It was painful. My husband and I watched movies on the laptop but no HGTV (we didn't have internet either). We waited to buy a TV till Thanksgiving week so we could get a good deal. Once we bought the TV we still needed something to put it on...We went to Ikea (of course) but I didn't really like any of the TV stands. For one, I was looking for something black to match our coffee and end tables (I know, too matchy-matchy...) and a lot of furniture at Ikea is "black-brown". I am picky. Finally I didn't like the height of some of the TV stands-most were too low for me. We had given up and were in the the warehouse area where we saw a display with the Expedit series bookcases which were still just getting popular two years ago. There are lots of different colors now (Umm I need the turquoise one!). You can see them everyone on Pinterest now. Apartment Therapy even has a list of different uses. At only $70 and in the right height and width we decided right away to get it! The options were white, birch, and black brown so we bought the white one.

In order to fit our DVD player and cable box we just excluded two of the shelves when putting it together. I thought about covering the back with fabric but have left it alone for now. We bought the two baskets (also at Ikea) and the top one holds the power strip and cords. They also now have doors you can add to the Expedit but those are about twice the price as a basket.

I rearrange the shelves occasionally. The A & P are from Hobby Lobby. The gold vases are my favorite Goodwill find. I don't know about you but in our area Target seems to donate their leftover items to Goodwill. These vases are from the Nate Berkus collection and would have cost $50 total from Target but only cost me $8! They still had the price tags on them.

The art over top of the TV is just scrapbook paper! I bought one of those big books filled with scrapbook paper on sale and picked out a few that I liked. It's not fancy but we can always upgrade later.