2 Frankenfurniture

This new credenza/hutch(es) piece in my study is a piece of Frankenfurniture. My husband coined that term when I was putting it together because it really did look like something out of a horror movie--if that horror movie was on HGTV. I bought this rather substantial credenza on-the-spot when I saw it without thinking it through. 

It had just come into one of my favorite crippy crap furniture stores here in San Antonio and it was massive. It had great clean mid-century lines and something that I always go ga-ga for: chrome. 

The whole footing of the piece was covered in 3 inches of shiny chrome. And you know how I like shiny things. So I bought it for $95 without any real place for it.  So it sat, and sat, and sat, and sat, and sat. For six months. My husband was very patient, because it took up some seriously valuable real estate in our too-small garage. Over time it became a resting place for bike equipment, tools, scooters, and anything and everything else in our garage. Until one day, while I was at the Pottery Barn Outlet, I came across this piece:

A Pottery Barn entertainment center hutch for a flat screen TV. And it too, was big. I thought, "hey, this piece is big, the credenza is big, maybe I can put this piece on the credenza piece and make a REALLY big piece". Did I have measurements? No. But for $75, I was willing to go with my gut on this one. 

When I got the hutch home, I put it on top of the credenza.

Hmmmm. The proportions were off. Its hard to tell in this picture, but it looked like the furniture equivalent of a short and squatty man with big haunches. It needed to be bigger, higher. And since I decided it needed to go in the study and handle all of my office stuff, I knew it needed another hutch in the middle, for the printer. So I took the measurements of the printer and built this:

About this time in the process my husband was shaking his head. He didn't know what I had gotten myself into. But I had to subject myself to doubtful looks because I couldn't carry any one of the three pieces of this hutch by myself. I asked him to help me drag out the credenza onto the driveway (no easy task!) so I could stack my hutches to see how the proportions looked. And that's when he yelled, "It's Frankenfurniture!"

Although at first I may have been a wee bit offended, I realized quickly he was right. It was definitely Frankenfurniture. It was a bit of a hodge podge, but I had a secret weapon, the same all furniture redo/build enthusiasts use--paint! And my handy dandy sander:

I primed and painted the console, and all of the 8 drawers seperately. As well as the printer hutch. I cut pieces of 1/8 inch plywood for the back of the printer hutch, and then painted them white, then turquoise blue, and attached them to the back.

That's when the weather turned a little nasty, so the Pottery Barn hutch came inside onto the kitchen table. Sorry family! Just eat your cereal on that teeny tiny open corner over there.

I primed and painted this hutch, and built two dividers to hold shelves. I attached those dividers to the top and back of the hutch.

I then attached shelves to the dividers, creating 9 cubbies. I then attached 1 x 2 face frame to the fronts of the plywood shelves to give them a thicker look.

The three pieces were ready to assemble. Which took some serious muscle, and a rented furniture dolly from U-Haul. Did I mention how heavy the console piece was?  I attached the hutches to each other in the back with simple flat brackets and screws. I added some card holder plates and handles to the front of each drawer so I can label what's in them, and filled that sucker up!

I no longer (well almost) have piles of things on the floor and mis-matched storage containers, it all fits nicely into this humongous piece! And although my husband called this piece Frankenfurniture, I don't think he doubted it would be cool when I was done. I try hard to never give him reason to doubt me--because there will always be a new project I will need his help haul around!