Project Information
We had a niche in our living room for a TV, one of those cookie cutter type housing developments. Anyways, I quickly grew tired of how bad our TV stand looked in the hole, and how empty it looked. I undertook this project. IT was really my first big project in a few years.
It grew as I progressed, originally it was just going to be the Entertainment Center, but then we decided to add recessed lights to the top cabinet, and add matching wall paneling and fireplace mantel to the wall next to it. The Fireplace had a cast cement surround but no mantel, it drove my wife nuts during Christmas time with no place to hang our stockings, so instead of going through all the work of tearing the cement surround out, I built a mantel to surround the top. Overall I am pleased with the outcome.
I used poplar and birch plywood for the cabinet and face frame. In hindsight I would have saved TONS of money and maybe even had a more consistent look on the wall paneling if I had used MDF, but It was a great learning process.
When I started the project, I thought, HA, that it would take a few days to do, ended up taking 3 months as the project progressed into a huge deal.
I started with a cheap Ryobi table top table saw and a Bosch router, by the time project was over, I ended up with a new table saw, new jointer, a few more router bits, a built in router table, a new drill, a few hand planes and a COMPLETELY reorganized garage/shop.
It grew as I progressed, originally it was just going to be the Entertainment Center, but then we decided to add recessed lights to the top cabinet, and add matching wall paneling and fireplace mantel to the wall next to it. The Fireplace had a cast cement surround but no mantel, it drove my wife nuts during Christmas time with no place to hang our stockings, so instead of going through all the work of tearing the cement surround out, I built a mantel to surround the top. Overall I am pleased with the outcome.
I used poplar and birch plywood for the cabinet and face frame. In hindsight I would have saved TONS of money and maybe even had a more consistent look on the wall paneling if I had used MDF, but It was a great learning process.
When I started the project, I thought, HA, that it would take a few days to do, ended up taking 3 months as the project progressed into a huge deal.
I started with a cheap Ryobi table top table saw and a Bosch router, by the time project was over, I ended up with a new table saw, new jointer, a few more router bits, a built in router table, a new drill, a few hand planes and a COMPLETELY reorganized garage/shop.
