Upcycle: Old Speakers to Nightstand

Well it's been a minute, but I'm back! Forgive me?

If not, hopefully you will by the time this post is over. :-)

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I have a confession to make. Well, a few confessions, I guess.

1. I love to shop. More specifically, find a deal. When Randy gets money, he knows exactly what he wants. When I get money, I can't wait to find out what I want!

2. I love junk. The saying is true, one man's trash is another man's (or woman's!) treasure. There's just something about old stuff, things that had a life before I met them.

3. I love to shop for junk. Thrift stores, Craigslist, online or local garage sales... Our budgeting has kind of put a cramp in my outings, but when I do have money... that's how I roll.

4. I have hoarding tendencies. Not like on an A&E level. I just get emotionally attached to things, and my eternal optimism assures me that one day I will fix that piece of junk, and we will use it! lol.

This is all normal, right? (Please comment that this is totally normal. Randy will see it and stop hating me.)

Anywho, because of all the above, my house is constantly full of old stuff, a lot some of which needs reupholstered, stabilized, painted, etc. My living room is testament to both the awesomeness of the thrift store, and my lack of ability to actually finish a project. Heck, now that I'm looking around, my whole house meets that description. Ha! 

But, lucky for you, (and me!) I got it together for long enough to actually start AND finish one of these projects. 

*Pats self on the back* 

***One last thing- please forgive my awful photography. You're not going to see my name on a watermark anytime soon, sooooooo don't judge me. LOL!***

So without further ado, I give you my upcycle project: old speakers into nightstands!

So in one of my thrift store junk-finding escapades I stumbled across this pair of old speakers. You know the kind I'm talking about. May have seen 'em in yours or your grandparents house growing up. Pretty much a prime example of ancient history. These didn't work, they looked straight out of the disco era, and most people wouldn't have given them a second glance on the shelf at the local thrift.

But when I saw them, I fell in love. I loved the vintage-y look they had, even if the colors wouldn't work... and I knew I was about to buy another project. But at $5-$10 for the pair (I bought these so long ago I can't even remember which it was! lol) I didn't have much to lose. 

It didn't take long for me to decide what these would become. We don't have the biggest master bedroom. We've struggled in the past to find furniture the fits our room without dwarfing it, and nightstands were the worst. They were always so wide that there was practically no space left on either side. Also, they were short- our bed is tall, so you can see why that would be a problem. So these slimmer, taller speakers were the perfect solution.

This was a simple, pretty self explanatory upcycle, but nonetheless, here's how I did it.

First things first- I unscrewed every. single. one. of what seemed like a million screws.

If I could skipped any of them, BELIEVE ME- I would have. Also, I removed the hideous fabric.

I did take the added measure to remove the actual speaker system... but only because I have a special project in mind for them ;-) I know, I have a problem.

Next, I sanded and painted them. Now, I'm not an expert painter, nor very knowledgeable about which paint for what project- that being said, I used the same paint as I used for the trim and doors in our room: Olympic paint+primer, semi-gloss in the color Pegasus. I did 2 coats, maybe 3 in some places, like the bars(?) in the front.

Sorry for the lack of pictures on this next step, I was losing steam and ready to be done with them. Basically I took the backing that the speaker was attached to, covered it with a piece of posterboard cut to the same size, and a layer of batting, though the batting isn't necessary- I just thought it would give it a slightly fluffier, softer look. As for the visible material that will show behind the bars (should I be calling these something else...? lol), the curtains in our room were suuuuper long, so there was more than enough to cut off what I needed for these and for the curtains to still be too long for where they hang. So that's what I did. 

They are matchy-matchy. But when you coordinationally challenged, like myself, matchy-matchy is the way to go!

So screw the back on and you're good to go! I also considered leaving the back open and adding shelves, or removing the bars and adding shelves and baskets, but we decided to keep them simple, and if our needs change or we just get tired of them how they are, we can change them again. :-)

I hope you like these as much as we do, and maybe feel inspired to start (or finish!) a project of your own! If so, please share this post on FB and Pinterest.

Before:

After:

Happy Project-ing! :)