The beast.

We have this huge entertainment center. I really hate it. I never wanted it. I like to call it the beast. Matt wanted it because the wall we kept the TV on in Hawaii was huge and we couldn't figure out a logical way to fill it besides with a big piece of furniture. I would have rather just had the wall be kind of empty. I kind of think entertainment centers are a guy thing anyway.



It gets SO dusty! I literally dusted this thing three days ago. Another thing I totally hate about it.

Since we've had it I've just thrown random objects on it like pictures and candles to fill it up because I could never find stuff I really liked to style it up. And since we've moved here, I felt like it was just a big eyesore. Well since one of my resolutions is to get this house as close to finished as possible (I swear I'm gonna do a resolutions post before this month is up), I realized I needed to find a way to decorate it with things I actually like.

Well I've been obsessed with this photo ever since I saw it on Little Green Notebook. I love how she accessorized this bureau she uses as a console and I wanted to apply it to my entertainment center.

I'm mostly obsessed with those two boxes. So instead of going out and looking for something similar, I decided to just try and make something similar.

The gold box was easy. I just painted one of those cheapo cardboard boxes found at any craft store with gold metallic paint. I love how bright hers is but I have a lot of yellow in my living room and I didn't want it to be too matchy. The patterned box was a little trickier. I bought this box and painted it black.



Then I made a pattern on the computer and cut it out of cardboard. Then I used a foam roller to paint the pattern onto the box. I used antique white and the foam roller rather than bright white and spray paint because I didn't want to try to make it totally perfect because then I knew any imperfections (because duh, there would be some) would be super obvious.



And I painted the inside a turquoise color as a nod to Little Green Notebook.



It's far from perfect (in retrospect it probably would have been better to paint the box white and cut out the outlines of the shapes, but hindsight is 20/20!). But I think it looks pretty cute on the shelf.



I picked the plant and planter up from Ikea a couple weeks ago and the glass jar is just from Michael's and it has all our fortune cookie fortunes we've saved from the past couple years. The whole shelf cost less than $20. What do you think? One shelf down, 6 to go!