The house that I live in had a lot of built-ins from the previous occupant. One of the built-ins was a double-sided wall bookshelf unit, with an oversized floor console.

One of the first things that I did was to remove the bookshelves, that made the room look much bigger. However, I never did anything about the oversized floor console other than paint it.

One day I was looking at a magazine and saw a modern console with legs. I was going to get rid of the old console, so I thought why not see if I could reconstruct this behemoth.

Before I could reconstruct, I needed to deconstruct – so out came the circular saw. I cut off 12″ from each end, and reduced the height by 5″ as well.

Once re-sectioned, I glued, nailed, and clamped it all back together.

I purchased the legs for $5.00 each at a local hardware store. They came with everything needed to easily attach them to the underside of the console.

I selected a charcole grey gloss paint for the new finish. I left the legs with the “1950’s blonde” look, but did put a light coat of varnish on them.

The smaller size and 1950’s style legs really gives the console a mid century modern look. Total cost for the transformation was $35.00.

So happy that I decided to recycle and reuse, rather than add to the local landfill!