Friday, January 11, 2008

Recycled TV Bar

A good friend of mine offered up an old style cabinet TV.. and for some reason it called out to become a bar! Thank you Sally!

This project is an experiment in MANY ways. It's the first time I tackled grouting. First time I've cut glass. First time I sewed a curtain. Because of all these firsts... I was scared to invest moula and the result is that it is also recycled in many ways!

The TV insided have been brought away to stay out of a land fill. The shelves, are mostly pieces of old mdf board that have been in the attic since my move... (they weren't deep enough so I ended up gluing multiple ones together). The MP3 player drawer... is a cigar box, found somewhere. The speakers, which you can't seen.. we also an attic find. And the mirrored glass, was formerly hanging up in the kiddo's bathroom :-)


LED rope lights, light up the curtains & insides when the room is darker
The white string on this side is the pull to open & close the curtains.


The glass wine bucket, was kicking around the house taking up space. The fake pewter grapes were taken off, and it's shape was the start of the feel for the top... which the kiddo has decided looks like a hurricane.






I had a lot of fun building this, and some challenges too... but I'm happy I stuck to my guns, recycled, and played!

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks awesome!

Unknown said...

This is so cool! I'm going to start combing craigslist for TVs so I can do this too.

Anonymous said...

Good job! I'm coming up with all sorts of possibilities for my dad's old stereo console!!!

Anonymous said...

fantastic..! love what you did with the mosaic'd top.. and yea for recylcing/reusing!

Anonymous said...

thats awesome!

Anonymous said...

Well done! I LOVE the top.

Anonymous said...

Looks great online and even better in person.

Anonymous said...

wow....!! this is so cool

Ananda Devika said...

I love it! Going to start hunting for an old tv to make my own... Very clever and stylin' design - saw it posted on craftzine and thought I'd stop by...

Anonymous said...

I am some what surprised with a picture of the Recycled TV bar. I had such a TV and gave it away to a company that will do Recycling with it. Great idea.

Anonymous said...

Very nicely done! A great example of how to recycle something like an old TV cabinet.

Anonymous said...

Hello there! I absolutely love this project and would like to try it out. Just curious as to what kind of paint you used and how exactly did you cut out the fancy pattern on top. You did a great job!!

Ann @TheAssetEdge said...

I just found your post from the Motherload. Wow - what a fun recycling project! It looks great!

My inlaws have the perfect TV for this project...

Bunny McCoy said...

Now THAT is cool! Good for you!

Elizabeth C said...

Wow!

I was going to comment on how much I utterly freaking love this, but words just fail.

Anonymous said...

Me and my partner are inspired by this Recycled TV bar. We are on the hunt for a tv to make our own version. We didn't have any luck at the flea markets today around Richmond, VA. Thanks for the wonderful idea!

Sarah and Lindsay

msubulldog said...

I can't believe no one has commented on this yet, because it's amazing! Really great idea and turned out so awesome.
*Saw it on the CRAFT magazine feed, btw.

LauraJ said...

This a lovely piece of work, and alcohol makes better conversations than TV most of the time anyway.

Anonymous said...

That looks awesome, great job!!

AlpineButterfly said...

To answer a couple of questions...

DIY'ers please be careful! TV's and Monitors, have a capacitor in them... this stores current (yes even when the TV is unplugged!), tubes can also implode. Proceed with caution, or stop by a TV repair shop...they'll help.

The paint is the Krylon spray paint for plastic, because much of the front is made out of plastic. I have recently found a Krylon base coat spray paint that will let you paint over with acrylic paints... I'll be exploring that next.

I cut the mirror with a glass cutter.. you can find this tool in stain glass shops. It will score the glass, and you can then snap it. This mirror was a little thick, so it took some trial and error... and some broken glass :-)

Judith HeartSong said...

ahh Haaa!! I found you! Great blog and great ideas.

Hannah said...

Thank you for sharing this idea! My sister and I have been looking at an old TV in our grandma's garage for a couple of years now. We've said we need to make it into something. This looks great and is (barely) within our skill level. Here's hoping ours turns out as well as yours!

AlpineButterfly said...

Hannah, That sounds awesome. Please send a photo when you get a chance, that would be so cool!...
I recently came across a article on instructables that has a great article where they explaining how to safely take a part a TV.
http://www.instructables.com/id/How_to_take_apart_TV