What to do with an old Armoire or TV Cabinet.

This hub is about what you can do with old armoires or television cabinets. We have four armoires in our house and one in the barn. We still have old televisions so we use ours. Many of the new flat screen television don’t fit into armoire. What do you do with the old ones? Here’s a few suggestions.

My daughter was getting rid of her armoire and I took it and use now to put all extra computer stuff in. It's is full and I have a hub on how we did recycled it.

One armoire I use for bedding. I believe that you should always try reusing what you have.

Following are my suggestions for your armoire and ideas I have found.

Turn it into a craft area or a gift wrapping/stationary station. I'm always having trouble finding a place for all that wrapping paper and ribbons. It's a good place to keep scissors, cards, bags, and ribbons where you can find them. It's easy for our Christmas wrappings to get away from us but if you have a special place for it you won't have trouble finding it when Christmas comes around.

Armoire will also work great for a garden area. Keep all the planting items you need in it. You can also use it to store your vases. I store my vases up high because that's the only place I have. When I want one I have to depend on someone else to get it down. Most of the time my flowers end up in whatever glass is handy to put them in. I would love to have a garden area like one in the photo. We don't have the room in this small house. If you have the room it's a great way to recycle an old armoire.

I like the idea of turning them into bars. Keep all your glasses and liquor in it. Even though I don't drink I think it's a good idea for people who want a bar.

If the inside back of the armoire looks bad because some armoires come with a hole in the back for holding a TV. You can easily and cheaply cover the back. Buy poster board or cardboard, and cut to the size you need to cover the back, then glue or tape fabric, pretty wrapping paper or wallpaper to the poster board and push it into the back of the armoire.

If you make the cardboard tight enough you won't have to glue it in and can change the look whenever you want. You could use very small nails and just tack it in. I would want to be able to take the poster board out so that I could change the fabric. If you do decide to change fabric then just add it right over the old fabric or wallpaper.

How about a changing table for baby. It would be so handy. Keep all the baby clutter that you need for baby in the armoire. I wish I had one when we had babies. All the diapers in those days were cloth diapers and rubber pants it wasn't always easy to find a place to keep them.They took up more space than the diapers do now. I would hook a diaper stacker to the door of the armoire.

Use it for a desk or computer area to hold all the equipment. It's also nice because it can be closed so no one can see your clutter.

Good place for those bills, papers, medical papers, pens, pencils, and computer stuff. We all have all those little items that take up space and no place to go with them. Makes a good filing place.

I get so over run with paper stuff. It drives me crazy. I'm always saving things that give me ideas for Hubpages.

A good place for your linen. Just to have a place to put away winter throws when not in use, in the summer.

Great place for all that bedding we all have, extra pillows, throw pillows that you don't have out all the time. If your like me I change my throw pillows. I put some away and bring others out.

This is a nice way to use the armoire in your bathroom to keep towels and all your bathroom things in.

Place baskets in to hold shampoos, extra toothpaste, make-up or toilet paper.

Add screen to show everything or put fabric on the doors to hide things. My bathroom stuff I ususally like to hide.

An old armoire for a pantry in your kitchen to put your kitchen linen in or store for your can goods. Place to hold pots and pans. All your pretty bowls and dishes. Great place for mixer, blender, griddles and food processor. The things you don't have room for on counters.

I love pantries as you can see from my pantry hub below. If I didn't have a closet for mine I would make one out of a armoire.

When your making a pantry from your armoire be sure to cover up the hole in the back, if it has one. Many armoires do have holes because they were for tv's. If you don't do this things will fall out and slip down the back.

If you don't want to do cardboard and fabric, you can cut a piece of plywood to size cover it in wall paper or sand and paint add to the back of the .that you want to keep out of sight. Wood shelves can be added.

A place for your collections.

Would have worked great for beanie baby collection. Their no longer a good collection.

They are so pretty done in milk paint. Now I have never used milk paint so I'm not an expert on it. I have seen armoires done in it and it makes them look so nice.

If your armoire has mirrors in it and you don't want them you can take the mirrors out and add screens. It will show off all your pretty things. You can use chicken wire or window screen.

Use it in a little girl's room put in all her dress up clothes. Make it hers by adding stick on flowers or if you can paint that's even better. It will hold all her jewels, tutus, crowns, mom’s old heels, hats and fairy wings. A little girl would love something like this and it would hide away the clutter.

It can also be used in a boys room for his collections, books, or games anything that needs to be stored or hid away.

If the armoire has front panels that come out you can add mirrors, if there aren't any and that's what your would like. This would also be nice in a liite girls armoire. We all know how much little girls love to dance in front of mirror and look at themselves.

Armoire is a French term meaning "closet." Armoires were created in the old days to store household goods. Many homes didn't have closets. Today they are available in many different styles country, french, and modern.

My grandmother had a armoire and when she died. I don't know who ended up with it. It was the old fashioned wardrobe type or chifforobe, that's what we called it.

The photos are three of our four armoires two are used to hold a television. The black one holds computer stuff. The dark colored one with all the fancy work on the front we bought I think it was back in the 60's, not sure what style it is. It now holds some of our linens.The armoire at the top of the page is in our bedroom and still holds a TV.

Feb. 20, 2012

The new televisions are made so different if their at all big they don't fit very well in the old armoires. We just found this out when we bought a new TV. This new television is 32 inch. We got the television in the armoire but now we can see the big hole in the back. So now I have to do something with the back and when I do I'll put it on here.

Check out my other hub listed below. It shows what we did with the black armoire in the picture. How we put the fabric in the back and added more shelves.

Now what to do about that big hole. I'll figure out something. Actually I'm going to add some fabric to back and it will cover the big hole and not look so bad. .

Now that we have the black armoire finished. We can work on this one.

It's ashamed when so many of these nice cabinets end up in landfills because people don't want to deal with them.

You could always turn it into a giant jewelry box.

The best idea I have seen is this chicken coop. So cute and so nice the doors can be closed and chickens kept safe.