Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Dilemma - the dreaded cable box


Ugh. So ugly. I had great intentions after re-finishing this old dresser. Visions of book stacks with a picture frame or two, some milk glass, etc. danced in my head. Much to my dismay, Mr. Tote insisted on getting digital cable in our bedroom. And my lovely dresser is where Mr. Comcast Guy decided to put the huge, ugly cable box. Oh, and he did it at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning, but that’s beside the point (not really… I was dead asleep when the knock at the door came). I was so sad for a month, looking at the ugly cable box and DVD player.


But then, the light bulb went on in my creative little brain. So I pitched my ingenious idea to Mr. Tote. Why not hide the cable box inside the top drawer of the dresser!?!?

Here’s how we did it.

1. Remove the drawer and bang off the sides and bottom of the drawer, leaving just the face.




2. Remove the drawer slide, if any, from the bottom of the opening in the dresser where the drawer used to be.


3. Using two Friction Lid Supports (can be found at Lowe’s), screw the supports to the inside edges of the dresser and onto the back side of the drawer. This creates a hinge effect without an external hinge showing on the front of the dresser. This took a bit of finagling to shimmy it back into the correct place.




4. Attach a magnetic closure/stop to the inside “roof” of the dresser and the other part onto the drawer. This provides extra support when the drawer is closed.


5. Drill a hole in the back of the back of the dresser, where the top drawer used to be, with a 1” wood paddle bit.


6. Place the electronics inside the drawer hole and feed the power cords through the hole in the back of the dresser.


7. Voila!! Bye bye, cable box. Now, Mr. Tote just has to put those wires in the wall. And I'm off to get that milk glass vase I’ve been eyeing at Goodwill.

I'm linking to:



DIY Day @ ASPTL












15 comments:

  1. Holy cow, what an ingenius idea! Girl, you rock. Thanks for linking up!

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  2. What a fabulous idea this is. It turned out beautiful. Smart woman you are.

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  3. One word...perfect :-)

    Great job!!

    Alisha

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  4. That looks great! I have the same problem with cables, but mine are in my living room. My husband insisted on having the television mounted.

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  5. That's an awesome idea! I don't know if the Mr. would allow me to hack into our new bedroom furniture but I would love to hide our DVD player.

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  6. What a great idea...thanks for sharing!

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  7. Great Job! I re-did a huge buffet for our tv console and wanted to do the same thing, but my hubby has too much electronic stuff to be contained in the drawer area.
    One suggestion- you might want to drill more holes in the back for ventilation so that the precious uglies don't get too hot. Apparently this is why the playstation AND wii have to live on top of my buffet, while the inside is full of the cable box, router and stereo receiver!

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  8. I guess these are the challenges when mounting a TV on the wall. Looks good now! I'm glad mine is in a cabinet, and I can close the door though.

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  9. As much as I enjoy watching a good TV show, DECORATING would be so much easier without them, wouldn't it? What a perfect solution you came up with!

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  10. Awesome fix! Way to go! I'm sure that works great too. Thanks for sharing.
    Linda

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  11. I would definitely hide the cables in the wall - or if you can't do that, then they do sell plastic pieces to cover them that can be painted to match the wall.

    Great reno!

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