Mike Vermeil
09-26-2005, 2:10 PM
Here's some pics of an entertainment center I recently completed for a customer. Their design tastes run decidedly Pottery Barn/Crate & Barrel, hence the design. I tried for a couple weeks to talk the customer out of the color, but they held strong, and in the end it turned out pretty nice.
The carcasses are all birch plywood, the face frames poplar joined with pocket screws, and the black material in three of the doors is speaker fabric. The long narrow door above the TV covers the center channel speaker – so the fabric was a natural choice. The customer was worried it would look funny on only that door, and decided to add it to the other two doors. Again I was concerned, but now that it’s complete, the look isn’t bad.
It’s actually four separate cabinets. The side cabinets are mirror images of each other with storage drawers on the bottom, door-covered storage on top, a stereo cabinet fitted with slide-out, adjustable shelves in the middle of the right, and adjustable book shelves on the middle left. The lower center cabinet which houses the TV has no floor so that the rear-projection big-screen can slide in. The face frame then attaches with spring clasps to the sides of the cabinet, holding it firmly against the face of the TV giving a complete built-in look. The upper center cabinet is more storage with standard doors.
The customers love the PB/C&B distressed look, so I sprayed everything with two coats of tan-tinted, oil primer, followed by two coats of gloss, oil topcoat. Once the topcoat dried, I sanded through many of the edges, exposing the wood-colored primer beneath. I then topped it all off with one coat of satin, water based poly to seal everything in, knock down the gloss and make it easier to keep clean. It’s a bit hard to see in the pics, but the look is really nice. The oil-based gloss paint gives a rock-hard shell, but then the satin poly gives a soft, muted look to the finish – much like the fuzzy filters they shoot all the older actresses through on TV.
I included a close-up shot of the brackets that Rockler sells to attach the Accuride full-extension slides to standard adjustable shelf brackets. Disassembled, the brackets seemed a bit flimsy, but once everything is put together, they’re very stable and work great. Combining the full extension slides with the adjustable shelf standards provides easy access to the rear of the components as well as full height adjustability for future A/V component changes.
All in all, it was a fun project. The sheer size (about 9' x 9' when assembled), however, made working on it in my small shop very difficult. I finally dumped over one of the side cabinets just prior to painting, and put a big dent in the face frame. Thanks goodness for Bondo!
Thanks for looking. Hope you enjoy.
Mike
The carcasses are all birch plywood, the face frames poplar joined with pocket screws, and the black material in three of the doors is speaker fabric. The long narrow door above the TV covers the center channel speaker – so the fabric was a natural choice. The customer was worried it would look funny on only that door, and decided to add it to the other two doors. Again I was concerned, but now that it’s complete, the look isn’t bad.
It’s actually four separate cabinets. The side cabinets are mirror images of each other with storage drawers on the bottom, door-covered storage on top, a stereo cabinet fitted with slide-out, adjustable shelves in the middle of the right, and adjustable book shelves on the middle left. The lower center cabinet which houses the TV has no floor so that the rear-projection big-screen can slide in. The face frame then attaches with spring clasps to the sides of the cabinet, holding it firmly against the face of the TV giving a complete built-in look. The upper center cabinet is more storage with standard doors.
The customers love the PB/C&B distressed look, so I sprayed everything with two coats of tan-tinted, oil primer, followed by two coats of gloss, oil topcoat. Once the topcoat dried, I sanded through many of the edges, exposing the wood-colored primer beneath. I then topped it all off with one coat of satin, water based poly to seal everything in, knock down the gloss and make it easier to keep clean. It’s a bit hard to see in the pics, but the look is really nice. The oil-based gloss paint gives a rock-hard shell, but then the satin poly gives a soft, muted look to the finish – much like the fuzzy filters they shoot all the older actresses through on TV.
I included a close-up shot of the brackets that Rockler sells to attach the Accuride full-extension slides to standard adjustable shelf brackets. Disassembled, the brackets seemed a bit flimsy, but once everything is put together, they’re very stable and work great. Combining the full extension slides with the adjustable shelf standards provides easy access to the rear of the components as well as full height adjustability for future A/V component changes.
All in all, it was a fun project. The sheer size (about 9' x 9' when assembled), however, made working on it in my small shop very difficult. I finally dumped over one of the side cabinets just prior to painting, and put a big dent in the face frame. Thanks goodness for Bondo!
Thanks for looking. Hope you enjoy.
Mike