Fauxdenza Bandwagon

Sorry for the hiatus, after the wedding we relaxed for oh, about an hour then spent the last few weeks finishing all the little projects that we've had outstanding here at the house, some that we're sitting around for months.  I constantly used the phrase, "after the wedding we can do it".  Well Mike was keeping track, and it was time to pay up.  We went so crazy doing them, that my motto was complete now, take pictures and write posts later. 

One of the first projects we finished was the ever popular "fauxdenza".  Basically a floating credenza made from Ikea cabinets and topped with wood.  I saw it first over at House*Tweaking, which used Chris Loves Julia as an inspiration, who linked to Brick House, who referenced the original genious Door Sixteen!  You get the idea, I did not make this up, people way cooler than me did it first and it was the perfect solution to the ugly entry corner we had going on in the living room.

I bought the Ikea cabinets months before the wedding, and much to Mike's chagrin, they sat in their flat-packed glory in a pile in the dining room.  We finally got to it a couple weekends ago and hung them on the wall.  It really was that simple:  assemble cabinets, install suspension rail, hang cabinets, add soft-close hinges and knobs, add wood to top and sides.


I bought the 24" high cabinets and we hung it right about the vent.  It landed a little higher than the previous table, but it feels normal now.

For years, we felt lucky that the old console table Mike made for our townhouse fit this little piece of wall.


Except I never really felt like it was our style anymore, and while we had storage in the ottoman, it wasn't really useful for the things that we needed to put in there, (i.e. board games, cards, and wii components).  It's getting closer to what I want for this room.


Even though the actual steps for this piece were really simple, it wasn't without some headaches and officially our first big fight of our marriage.  Yes, I'd say most of our arguments are about building things, furniture and decor more than anything else!  I bought the 24" cabinet knowing that I wanted to cut a hole in the back to fit over the outlet to have all our charging electronics hidden away.  Our outlets tend to be really high due to the high baseboard trim so I didn't see the problem.  Fast forward to installation day and Mike refuses.  He says it's shoddy work and he would negatively judge someone who did that, and would therefore never do it himself.  To add insult to injury, I didn't really measure and the outlet was really half above the vent and half below, meaning that I would only get the top plug inside the cabinet.  Mike almost had a stroke.  This is an almost exact recollection of what was said:

Me: "No one will ever see it because the cabinet sits so low." 
Mike: "I'll know it's there.  I' won't be able to sleep at night knowing it's there"

Really, hunny? 

In the end we came to a sensible solution, he would do it the way I wanted and if he hated it, he'd rip it out and I'd have to live with wasting the money and the old table.  Obviously I'm writing this post so he was fine with it afterwards.  He even said, "It doesn't bother me as much as I thought".  And that folks is a win in my book!

He did ask me if I wanted any mitered edges for the top, and I said it was fine just to lay the top on the side pieces.  We used birch cabinet-grade plywood, birch veneer edging, Minwax Dark Walnut stain (2 coats), and some polyurethane, (3 coats).


The most technical we got was when Mike scrolled the back edge to match perfectly with the old wavy plaster walls.  Anyone with a house 85+ years old will appreciate this small feat.

 
Now that it's hung I'm working on finding the right artwork and some actual styling more than the bowl of random objects and antlers we've got going on now.