Entertainment Center w/ Album Drawers

[Jim Becker]

One of the things I truly appreciate about your projects, Julie...is that your home is your shop. Looking great!

[Julie Moriarty]

One of the things I truly appreciate about your projects, Julie...is that your home is your shop.

Boy, is that ever true! I was thinking about that just this morning. I've got everything apart now so I can do all the glue ups. I look around and see clamps on the coffee table, drills and pocket hole tools strewn about the floor, rules and squares on another table when I realize "my workshop" is everywhere - garage, one bedroom, lanai and now the living room!

[Julie Moriarty]

I know I'm slow but without a planer (in for repairs) I'm really slow! My hand planing skills are getting a workout.

The pecky Bolivian walnut certainly has a mind of its own. I have to rip it 1/4" or so wider than needed, joint it straight and rip it to final width for just about every board. The two rails down the sides of the bookshelves had to be perfect. There's no support for 55". I used biscuits to keep the walnut flush with the sides of the cabinet. The sides are trimmed out with more walnut so when I used the biscuit jointer I had to make sure the walnut spacer was tight to the plywood. Spring clamps worked great,



The shelves will be maximum thickness I can get out of the walnut. After running it through the drum sander it ended up being 1-1/16". Here's how the shelves started. Pretty rough.


And here's where I am now. The top of the center section will be flush with the tops of the shelves. The TV will be under it. It's starting to look like something!

[Julie Moriarty]

All of the six shelves for the bookcase are milled, drum sander planed and RO sanded to 180. The rough boards were 12"-14" in width but didn't take much time on the drum sander to get them flat. I had read Bolivian walnut was pretty stable but when ripping the 8-9" wide boards, I didn't find that to be true. However with these wider boards I found them to be very stable. Working without a planer or jointer, I was happy they could be flattened so easily.


The fronts for the album drawers are glued up. The panels are made from QS maple and whitewashed. Once a finish is sprayed on, some of the wood tone will bleed through and you'll see the grain better.


The top center piece gave me fits. Trying to get all the pieces to sit flush against a wall that was not quite square was a challenge. And getting the face frame of the center piece required me to haul the carcase back and forth several times until I got it just right.

Yesterday morning I went to glue the face frame to the box using biscuits. I had it all together when I realized the face was upside down! So I had to tear it apart, scrape off all the glue and let it dry before refitting it. ARRRGGGGHHH! But it's glued up now and the interior is whitewashed.

On the left is all that remains of the 67 bd/ft I originally bought. I thought I'd have plenty left over.

Now I have to get started on spraying. And I have no idea where I'll do it and how I'm going to lug all those pieces around.

[Jim Dwight]

Nice looking project. You comments help me understand your planner comments in another thread. I've never planned that wood, never worked with it, but I do have to make a lot of passes with my little lunchbox planner. I'm taking something on the order of 1/32 off on each pass. I sometimes do more on narrow boards, expecially if they are hardwood.

I also have a DeWalt track saw and the router attachment. It works well with one of my PC690s. Best way I know to make long dados. I do not have a router with good dust collection, however. I've been thinking about that DeWalt. I can't bring myself to pay the asking price for a Festool.

[Julie Moriarty]

Nice looking project. You comments help me understand your planner comments in another thread. I've never planned that wood, never worked with it, but I do have to make a lot of passes with my little lunchbox planner. I'm taking something on the order of 1/32 off on each pass. I sometimes do more on narrow boards, expecially if they are hardwood.

I also have a DeWalt track saw and the router attachment. It works well with one of my PC690s. Best way I know to make long dados. I do not have a router with good dust collection, however. I've been thinking about that DeWalt. I can't bring myself to pay the asking price for a Festool.

Jim, with the pecky Bolivian walnut, it will bring the 735 to its knees. Or maybe I just got a bad one. But the track saw as a jointer is pretty impressive. On a badly bowed board, the track saw will cut jointing time to a fraction of what most jointers will do.

[Julie Moriarty]

I've been told I'm a wood hoarder. Today that paid off. I got the speaker grille cloth today which compelled me to find wood to make the frame. Leaning against the wall of the garage was two strips of northern maple I refused to throw away. "Some day I will need that."

In the center cabinet will be two doors. Inside that cabinet will be the bass speaker. With the rails and stiles milled, all I needed was the frames for the speaker grilles. And those two strips of maple jumped out at me.

Rather than risking nails spitting out, I just glued and clamped the pieces together.


I was tinkering with a white or off-white grille cloth but black won out


The frame hasn't been finished but maybe the black will work


I think I can hear David Byron singing The Wizard, somewhere off in the distance...

[Jim Becker]

I think I can hear David Byron singing The Wizard, somewhere off in the distance...

And if you're lucky, he'll come marching through your house with the current "fully mobile" band once you have this project completed.

[Julie Moriarty]

That was good, Jim. Put a smile on my face.

[Julie Moriarty]

Yesterday we dismantled the entertainment center and, one by one, dragged the pieces out front to spray them. I'm using General Finishes High Performance poly in satin for everything, even the tops. This is my spray booth


I almost got a coat on everything but clouds started rolling in. Earlier, we had just taken the two end base cabinets out to spray them when we started feeling drops. I looked up and didn't see any dark clouds. It was mostly sunny. Pretty soon the drops turned to rain and we were scrambling to bring the cabinets back in the house. So when the dark clouds rolled in, I shut it down for the day. Good thing because just as I was rolling up the plastic, the rain started and soon it was pouring. Maybe I need a drier spray booth.

[Julie Moriarty]

While I'm waiting for another gallon of poly to arrive, it seemed like a good idea to get the back wall done. I took some rough sawn 2x6 cedar boards and resawed them into thirds then whitewashed the planks. I didn't plane the boards, just left them however they came out of the bandsaw.


I moved the HVAC return from the floor to the ceiling. Rather have it draw heat off the ceiling than cold off the floor.

I ran out of planks, just a little shy of finishing. So I had to push everything back in place until I resaw and whitewash some more planks.

[Julie Moriarty]

Applying the finish on all of the cabinet sections was completed on Friday. Then the rain rolled in. What's left is manageable except the top for the base center cabinet. Its size and weight are at the upper limits of what I can handle alone. But after a couple of coats of poly, slippery is added into the mix. While carrying it from the family room to the lanai, it slipped right out of my hand and crunched the laminate flooring.

So rather than try to lug it outside to the saw horses, I decided to use the roll and tip method boaters use when painting the boat's hull. The poly is spray only but roll and tip worked pretty well. I still want to spray the final coat but I'll need to recruit a neighbor or wait for the weekend again.

[Julie Moriarty]

Almost done! Just a few finishing touches - deciding on handles, making a pullout for the stereo equipment and finding something to keep the rope light on the top center cabinet in place.



The 150# Blum Soft-Close Tandem slides work great with the album drawers. When I was loading in the albums, I was worried about the weight. But those slides are so smooth it's a pleasure to using them.


A close up

The band saw marks were the result of the planer dying. Rather than taking all the wood to the drum sander, I went with the rough sawn look.

[Jim Becker]

That looks really nice, Julie.

Something you might experiment with is to put a black curtain behind the screen to blank out the white wall. It will catch the eye less that way, especially during daylight hours, but not interfere with your ability to make changes, etc.

[Robert Engel]

Nice work. Different take on rail/stile direction works with this piece.

As for the lumber, have you tried a Google search? From the looks of those palms, I'm guess you in SW FL. Close?

Personally I gave up on the local distributors around me I just hate dealing with surfaced lumber.

So once a year, I make a 7 hr trip to sawmill in NC where I can get some really nice stuff. Me and my brother make a road trip out of it and have a good time.

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