Next Project: Entertainment Center

[Matt Meiser]

And its finished. Or at least I'm calling it finished. I used General Finishes water-based stain which I'm not overly thrilled with. It kind of reminds me of the Minwax Polyshades product in that it sat on the surface and didn't soak in. It was also very hard to get even. Then my first coat of USL had more orange peel than I would like. I tried to sand some out in a place that wouldn't show, but almost instantly I sanded right through the stain in some high spots in the grain. I went ahead and sprayed 2 more coats which helped level things but there is is still a lot and I'm afraid to wet sand for fear of sanding through.

[Matt Meiser]

Two more showing the wiring access in the back.

[Dewey Torres]

Matt,
It turned out great and it was a fast one. Another vote for Kreg!

Fantastic piece.

[Matt Meiser]

I got it installed last night. I started a new thread over in the Projects Forum for the completed pictures so that if someone is searching for ideas later they don't have to wade through this whole thread to find them.

After getting it installed, I found a few minor things I would have done different:
- It could still stand to be an inch or two deeper. The mess of cables going into the receiver use up a lot of space, especially the thick HDMI cables I used. It fits, but just.
- Make the side compartments 1" wider. They would have been just fine, but the Blum hinge mounting brackets really ate into the space. Or I could have used different hinges, but at the expense of all those nice adjustability features. I couldn't put the receiver on the top shelf as I had originally planned as a result because it was too wide. Since a lot of stuff is narrower now than 5 years ago, it won't be too much of an issue, I just have to be careful what goes where.
- The drawer ended up smaller than I pictured it would be when I ordered the hardware. I chose Blum Tandem slides for 3/4" material but 1/2" would have been fine. and would have allowed for a couple more DVD's in the drawer. Also, had the cabinet been I think 1" deeper, I could have used 18" slides instead of 15".