Befor and After Part 2: My Built-in aka The Beast

This Before beast you see below was always slated for demo. But then it came time to take down the beast and well, it did not budge. Nope, not one bit. My husband took a sledge hammer to it and it bounced back. I am totally serious; the sledge hammer ricocheted off the built-in.

After the laughter subsided, we scratched our heads for some time as we figured out how to update this monster and make it aesthetically pleasing and suitable for modern electronics.

We started with paneling the back with brown fiber board to cover the tongue and groove back and give it a more custom look. Then we closed up the center column to make it appear as one custom piece and added simple molding detail to the doors. You may also notice we took out two shelves to the left so the flat screen could be added.

I painted the back of the bookcase Benjamin Moore's match to Ralph Lauren's Blue Shale. Ben M's color is called Atmospheric and we added large 8" Felicity Pulls in polished nickel from Restorations Hardware.

Not too shabby if I don't say so myself.  At least she'll do for a while.  We have far too many other projects in our dated dwelling to fixate on this one.  By the way I have to add, I am cannot style a room worth a damn.  The bookcase items are my very best attempt.  I need to hire an interior stylist to help with my home.