Entertainment Center Upgrade (Part One)

[It was either the Carlin quote or something about when you get more room you get more stuff until you no longer have any room…]

I don’t remember where I got my current TV stand. I either found it on the curb or paid $10 for it at a garage sale. It has served me in good stead the past several years. First in my studio apartment, then in a regular sized apartment, and now in my house.

As I’ve gotten more and more room, I’ve gotten (you guessed it) more and more stuff. At first I just needed something to hold a TV and my PS4. Now it’s TV, PS4, retro console, speakers, tuner, and more.

(Yes, that’s a lot of movies. No, I don’t believe in using a streaming service. If I like it, I want to have a physical copy of it. I’ve already lost one series I liked, and I don’t want to lose another. A little crazy? Yes, but no more so than the concept of being a billionaire…)

So I started looking for a new console stand/entertainment center in my usual hangouts: GoodWill, Craigslist, dumpsters, etc… What? Buy new? Are you mad? I hocked a kidney for this house; that’s something you can’t do twice. I know, I’ve tried…

Since this blog post isn’t titled “TV Stand (Part One)” you know what I ended up finding. It was at GoodWill. A perfect 50″ wide (the size of the gap between the media shelves), great finish… All in all, perfect for my needs.

That’s not the one I got.

Jake Speed:
Sometimes you do things the hard way.

Margaret Winston:
Why?

Jake Speed:
Reads better.

“Jake Speed”, movie 1986

The entertainment center next to it had more drawers, more room, a better design, and was $10 cheaper. It was also 60″ inches wide, badly scratched, and missing hardware.

I had to buy it. No, not logical. But as the wise Vulcan said,” Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers that smell bad.” Besides, maybe I measured the space available incorrectly.

{Narrator’s Voice: “No, he did not”}

I had little trouble getting it home. Workers at the store helped me load it into my Kia Soul. Surprisingly. it fit! It was a tight squeeze,

… but we made it work.

As I said, getting it to the house was not a problem. Getting it into the house, however… Let’s just say it got done. I wish that there was someone there making a video of the move, so that I could put it online. Then again, if there was someone there making a video, I would have shanghaied them into helping me, and this whole paragraph wouldn’t exist. Maybe that happened in some parallel universe…

So here it is. I’m going to refinish it, add new hardware, and figure out some way to make more room for it. I’ve never refinished something before, but I’m sure there are a few hundred YouTube videos on the subject, right?

{Narrator’s Voice: Yes, yes there are.}