Using a Bookshelf as a TV Stand

No... it's not real.

Oh hello there.  Uhhh.  So.  Saturday- I was bored.  Nothing good comes from me being bored.  Well, I decided to organize the set of drawers underneath the desk in the office.  After about five minutes, everything I pulled out of the drawers I began cramming back.  What can I say? I am not so good at organizing. I have the summer to organize.  I shall do it later. Procrastinators unite!  

Anyways- if you mustache-err-must ask about the mustache... as I was organizing I struck gold!  An unopened set of mustaches.  It only took Eric like twenty minutes to notice that I was wearing one.

Annnnnyways....

Another project I took on, and actually "finished" (I say "finished" because I believe everything will probably end up changing when I either get something new or move something around) was to organize the bookshelf/TV stand.  I chose to use a bookshelf as a TV stand.  Where did we get it?  Oh boy, I shall tell you.  Once upon a time, Eric and I were driving to my classroom during the summer.  We past a garage sale and I spotted this interesting looking bookshelf.  On the way back- we had to stop... muuussst haaaaaave boooookshelf.  

Once the car came to a stop I pretty much sprinted to this shelf to see if it was for sale.  I have anxiety problems, so if I see something that I MUST HAVE at a store or garage sale I get incredibly anxious hoping that no one gets to it before I do.  It was priced at 30 bucks and I offered 20.  SOLD!  Whoop, whoop!  When I got home I looked up this shelf, it went for 200+ hundred smackaroo's at target.  Boom.  Saving money.  Check out this one.  Not the same but pretty similar.

 Then we tried to put it in our car.  Haha.  Oh man, that was terrifying.  We strapped it in and it wouldn't fit.  So we moved the driver's and passenger's seat pretty much all the way up and it still hung out.  The lady at the garage sale kindly offered us some rope and we tied that baby in.  Driving home (we lived about 2 minutes away at the time) was scary because we have a manual car, and driving so close makes it hard to shift gracefully.  The car made so many angry noises that day.

Normally, this baby stands up so it is tall instead of wide.  For a while in our rentals I had it that way because we used a table that I made as a TV table.  When we moved into our current home, I thought that this bookshelf would look more interesting as a TV stand, especially if we turned it so that it was wide.  Haha can you imagine it as a TV stand being that tall?  Woof. 

 I love this as a TV stand.  I can display lots of artwork, books, and knick knacks.  Finding a bookshelf that can be turned to be wide instead of tall may be challenging, but this one has crazy shelves that go in different directions.

Lets's take a look at the set up, shall we? 

When we arranged this before, we only had DVD's.  I wanted to set it up as a "grown up" TV stand, and give our visitors the impression that we read.  Or can read.  I use pictures that are sentimental to me.  Pictures at our wedding, and of family.  As soon as I find more frames, more pictures will be added to the shelf.  I picked out books that I really enjoy, and also add a splash of color.   Read the end of this post to see my tips on picking artwork that works well together.

Oh, I got that golden squirrel for Christmas.  Aw man he is so pretty.  The golden squirrel.  A lot of this shelf is filled with Japanese stuff.  Eric's mom acquired all of these awesome Japanese antiques and gave them to us.  I love them.

When I was placing objects, I was trying to space out colors.  Not too much.  But if you put all of one color in one area it is hard to establish a "flow".  When they are spread, it allows your eyes to wander and take in the decorations.

After I painted our dining room navy blue I moved the lamp that was here to that room because it had some turquoises in it and it looked better against the blue.  Originally I had the tree lamp here, but it wasn't thick enough.  It was too tiny to fill that gap.  So, I had mister wooden lamp that fit perfectly.  It has a balance of space.  Then, I moved our cacti to the shelf.  Oh so cute.

In order to set up a shelf so that it keeps your interest I recommend balancing the space with books, colorful objects, and pictures.  Do not load your shelf with color all in one area.  This shelf is more challenging to fill because the sections are big and small.  They have such odd spaces.  Finding things that will actually fit into these spaces is tricky, but overall I am happy with it.