Painted Entertainment Center

(Updated for 2023 with clarity and more information.)

In my exhausted haze of caffeine and dreams, I’m thrilled (thrilled!) to show off the one of the most intricate furniture projects we’ve ever completed!

A mashup between a Craigslist find and a castoff TV console, the before photo is practically begging for a furniture makeover. At over 12 ft long, our entertainment center offered an abundance of storage, but it grossly lacked cohesive style.

Recommended Furniture Painting Supplies

• Good Quality Furniture Paint
• Primer
• Microfiber Roller – Make sure it’s for smooth surfaces and won’t shed fibers.
• Paint Brush – taklon brushes for details like around the handles and a 2.5 inch angled Purdy Brush for the rest.
• Wood Filler and/or Paintable Caulk- to repair any holes or dents.
• Something to stir the paint with
• Drop Cloths
• Orbital Sander – A nice one with high OPM (orbits per minute) saves time.
• Sandpaper – 100 or 120 and 220+ grit

5 Tips for Painting Large Furniture

I have some great advice in our tutorial on painting furniture white, but these tips are specific to painting very large pieces like our entertainment center.

1. Start with a plan

What look are you going for? How will you keep dust and pet hair out of the paint while it dries? Will you need to spend a long time on a ladder to do the top?

Not sure which paints are best for furniture? I’ve tried all the top brands and included my top pick for the best furniture paints and why.

2. Cut Time with a Paint Sprayer

For very large pieces, I recommend using a paint sprayer if you can. There are so many benefits to painting with a paint sprayer over traditional brushes and rollers. But never fear, I brushed and rolled this entire furniture piece!

3. Use a roller on large flat surfaces.

On large surfaces like dresser tops or the sides of this entertainment center, paint will start to set up long before you can finish brushing it, leaving steaks and blemishes.

I highly recommend brushing any inside corners or edges and then using a roller – it will be faster, easier, and smoother. Just look for rollers specifically made for smooth surfaces – they often say made for doors and trim.

4. Always complete all prep work first.

Sometimes we all just want to move on and see some progress. However, you are likely to blow dust and maybe make different decisions as you move along. The prep work is the most boring part – get it over with at the start.

5. You don’t have to clean your brushes and rollers every day. 

Most furniture pieces require more than one coat of paint and more than one day of work.  Washing your brush/roller after each coat of paint can be a huge pain.

Instead, I wrap my brushes/rollers in foil and place in a ziplock bag in the fridge. As long as they are sealed, you can leave them in the fridge for a few days without the paint drying.

Painted Entertainment Center Before and After

We chose to divide and conquer. Hubby worked on building the TV stand while I started prepping the rest for painting.

Our Design Decisions

My first tip was to make a plan, so this area lists some of the problems we encountered and how we dealt with them in our particular entertainment center.

First, our bookend shelves weigh approximately 300lbs each. Portable, they are not. So, they needed to be painted smack dab in the family room. Thus, I made sure to use a zero VOC paint so we would not have to deal with any toxic paint fumes.

Second, the original trim could not be matched, so we pulled off the center rail and replaced it all the way around.

As you see in the before photo, we did have a long piece of bottom trim. We saved that and cut it in half to make the transition on the bottom seamless. Even though the trim does not extend across the bottom of the centerpiece entirely, it looks intentional.

Lastly, I left the interiors of the display shelves dark and unpainted. They have lights and I felt this would be detracting from the exterior.

Beyond these problems, there wasn’t a lot of prep work. I gave it a good sanding around all of the exterior.

Painting the Entertainment Center

The first coat was actually Fusion Mineral Concealer. They do not appear to make this anymore, but it was a cheaper alternative used as a paint undercoat to help transition the dark wood to white without as many coats of expensive paint. I also did a second coat of this.

The original handles could not be removed, so I spent hours (days in fact!) with a teeny-tiny brush hand painting around them. You could barely see these pulls in the original dark finish, and they stand out beautifully now!

How We Matched the Doors

Our entertainment center was a steal originally because the seller wanted to keep the center piece. It had a top, but not a TV stand. So how did we make the entertainment center look like it was this way all along?

We built one! The custom center entertainment console looks like it was built in. It’s seamless and makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE!

First, my husband put together the basic foundation for the center console. As seen above, it’s made only from good quality plywood in a frame of shelves. I designed and helped to add the trim and doors on either side.

The doors themselves are created from thin plywood and then we mitre cut and glued 1x3s to the front of the panel. We used a router table and roundover bit to curve the edges of the doors. Lastly, we layered some stock trim around the inside of the 1x3s that matched the existing doors.