PIANO SURROUND

For this project, we modified a couple of Target shelving units to surround a piano, and it is one of our favorite builds so far!

When we bought our electric Yamaha piano, the wall we decided to place it on was really tall, creating so much extra space above it. We threw around some ideas … maybe wall art above it … or a shelf with art on it. We didn’t like those ideas because we still had an expansive amount of wall there. We did a search on Pinterest for “decorating around a piano” … and came up with these ideas pictured below.

We loved the idea of having shelves all around it with the built in look, and we fell in love with the image on the left. We absolutely LOVED everything about it … including the map hanging behind the piano and the message board leaning against the map. This served as the inspiration behind this build.

At first, we were drawing up some plans for building this from the ground up. But then we had a change of direction in that we decided to see if there were some shelving units we could hack. We started looking at IKEA for something that would work, and when we came up empty there, we turned to Target and found some that were PERFECT!

Here is our “hack” list for this build:

• Add a connection at the top between the two shelving units
• Add recessed lights to the bottom of this connection over the piano
• Add drawers on the bottom of both sides of the shelves

Now on to the build! We assembled the shelving units, and left out the trim piece located at the top of each, because we knew we were going to cover this up with a trim piece that would extend across the unit as a whole tying it all together.

Next, we built a box that would connect the two sides. We built this with three sides. The front, two sides, and the bottom. We connected this piece to the two shelving units about 2 inches below the top of each shelving unit.

Once this was done, we trimmed it all out with the piece of moulding across the unit, added some crown-style moulding at the top, and painted it all white to match.

The next step was to build the drawers. We built three drawers on each side, and finished it out with simple black hardware pulls we picked up at Home Depot.

For the lighting, it was a bit tricky to find something we liked and that would work. We wanted something small, with the look of recessed lighting … and this was HARD to find. We finally got on the right track when we were researching lighting for jewelry displays. We bought some small lights on Amazon that we thought were wired correctly … but as it turned out, the lights were made for a 12Volt plug in. In order to make them work, we had to then buy an adapter that would convert the 12v into a 110V that would plug into a standard wall socket.

We drilled holes into the bottom side of the center area and installed the lights.

The wiring is safely located inside the box, and accessible if needed.To easily turn the lights on and off, we installed the switch in the back of the upper left shelf. Out of the way, but easily accessible.

We went searching for map wall art and the message board to replicate our inspiration photo, and were so pleased to find something that fit just right and had the exact look we were going for at Hobby Lobby!

So here is the final piece with all the decor added!

And here is what it looks like with the lights on!

Thanks for reading!

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