Building of an Entertainment Cabinet, Part 1

We are in need of an upgrade.  Many people have discovered their wooden entertainment cabinets no longer fit the newer, flat screen TVs that are on the market.  For us it began with the boys getting a Wii for Christmas, which has lead us to replace our 10-year-old TV for a larger, flat screen TV.  I am against placing the TV over the fireplace as I don't want the TV to be the centerpiece of the living room and enjoy changing the art work on the mantle on a whim.  It wouldn't be smart choice due to the fact that we have a wood burning fireplace which spits out smoke and ash.  The TV we are getting ready to purchase will be about 40".

Here is a picture of our existing set-up with a perfectly good piece of hand-me-down furniture which will moved to the basement.  I always imagined having a built-in set of bookcases and cabinets in this space.  With this upgrade we are also changing our sound system and will detail that upgrade as well.

It started when I suggested to my husband that he could build it himself.  He has built the deck, designed and built our shed and worked on our basement renovation.  He resisted doing this project since it is so visible.  He revisited the idea even as I was looking at blogs for ways to use already built bookcases.  We visited some furniture stores and of course nothing would fit exactly into our 69" wide space.  It is a deeper space then most bookshelves and I want to use as much of the space as possible.  Keeping our options open we talked with a man at Home Depot about purchasing custom-built kitchen cabinets for the space.  For a simple design of 4 bottom cabinets and four upper glass-fronted cabinets the price came to $2500.  It didn't even have all that I wanted included.  So we re-thought it.

Ryan found a site called Barker Cabinets that specializes in custom built cabinets we could order unfinished and then paint.  Still a bit pricey at $1,000.  I did some more research and found an Amish site which make door fronts.  With that in mind Ryan decided he could work with this.  He plans to build the frame first and install it, and then we will order the custom made cabinet doors after the frame is installed.  We still plan on having glass-fronted top cabinets with lighting inside and four bottom cabinets.

Here is the first part:

First you think

Then build the bottom portion to fit snug.

Put a shelf on top and then take a little rest.

Build the top half.

Detail

Ask your wife to help slide the top half in
(thankfully no pictures of that), only it doesn't "slide".  
So Ryan pounds it in.  

High five your assistant for finishing Part 1.

Part 2