TV Panel

The main intent of the house renovation was to segregate the living hall from the chaotic dominance of the kiddos. Our previous living hall was like a one stop shop; not only did we entertain guests there but the kids watched TV, ate and even slept in the same space. Toys littered the floor, sofa pillows were stained with milk marks, comforter tido piled in a corner... Well you get the gist.

With the new family hall, my dreams of having a separate elegant and pristine living hall for entertaining finally came true. But first, we had to move the TV and the TV panel out of the living hall and into the family hall. Kalau tak move the TV, serupa la macam tak buat ape ape... It's like the kids gravitate towards wherever the TV is!

Anyway, Hubby being Mr Thrifty (well one of us had to be it, kalau tak habis lah our savings #imsuchashopaholic)... He wanted to salvage our TV panel. He refused flat out to pay for a new one. I was sort of on the fence. I guess I just didn't have the faith in Hubby, acting like Mr DIY and all. To add on to that, our renovation contractor had some doubts about whether they could rip off remove the TV panel without damaging its structural integrity. Ms Pushy (that would be me) told them to at least try. I mean, if it breaks in the removal process, then Hubby would simply have to accept it with a heavy heart and toss it into the bin... But at least he knew they tried.

Instructions for our renovation contractor. See how the kids conveniently laid their toys on the side?

The removal process.

Happy to report that from using a substantial number of workforce and some very careful prying, they managed to take the whole thing out in one piece. The very next day, Hubby got to work with redoing the TV panel. Using some laminated flooring from Houz Depot, he completely transformed the originally white TV panel, to a 'wooden' look that matched our family hall floor!

Work in progress.

Eons ago I had this 'brilliant' idea of painting over the brown drawers. It took me an entire night to scrape the white paint off (using a spoon!), to get them back to its original brown.

Looks easy enough! Simply cut the laminated strips to fit, and glue them to the surface.

Glue for laminated flooring.

Unfortunately the laminated strips were not long enough to fit the entire width of the panel.

I initially thought that the lines in between strips of the laminated flooring would look ugly. But Hubby was right, I barely noticed it once the transformation was complete. So so happy with the end results! But what's more important, is that we didn't break the bank to get what we wanted. Every cent matters!

Tadaaaaaa... the end results!

How our family hall looks now.

Remember our living hall sofa? We turned one sofa around 90degrees to transform it into an L-shaped sofa. Wide and comfy enough to cuddle up for a movie!

A new TV panel would have cost us more than RM2k (based on our observations at the recent HomeDec). With this DIY, we spent ~RM350 for two boxes of laminated flooring, some glue and a brush. I love DIY projects!

Bottom line is, reuse and recycle whatever you can. And, have faith in your husband once in a while. *chuckles*