My husband and I decided to make an entertainment center from the Apothecary Console plans. We mostly followed the plans, but wanted it to be taller than the original in case we want to use it in a dining room as a buffet in the future. To do this we just added another level of drawers. I wanted the drawers on the bottom to be wider, so each of them is four false front's wide. The wood on top is walnut from some trees my dad cut down over 25 years ago. We wanted more of this to show than would have if we followed the original plan, so we put a two inch trim piece around it. I really wanted card catalogue drawer pulls but couldn't find any that were dark that were at all "cheap"...so I bought gold ones online and spray painted them with a "hammered" spray paint which worked really well.
Walnut on top: Minwax Polycrylic
Drawer Pulls: Rustoleum "Hammered" in Brown
Also, I very slightly sanded the edges of the false drawer fronts and then used coffee grounds to darken the wood a little bit. It's not very noticable, but without doing it I thought it all blended together too much.