Entertainment Center (and bathroom, and kitchen)

[Rob Price]

Okay, for one, this is the last time I do cabinets for a LONG time (ever?). I took on a basement finishing job (my own) and decided I would do all the carpentry short of the framing. This involved a bathroom vanity, a home theater room with a wall to wall entertainment center, and a small kitchenette. I think the final count was around 30 raised panel doors. After two years of working on it here and there, I finally finished it this fall. The idea was for a family room type feel during the day (the humble flat screen surrounded by decorative cubbies) and mega-movie theater feel by night (110" projection screen, dimming sconces, columns). My wife gave me the green light on AV equip with the one caveat that she wanted a built-in look, she didn't want to be looking at big speakers/cables/wires etc. I found Axiom Audio makes in-cabinet (not just in wall, but full sized) speakers that fit the bill perfectly. I had to build my own subwoofer grill to complete the look, but now they even offer a built in sub as well. Oh well. I decided to go with the regular center channel to keep the cabinets from being too tall to accomodate my screen. You can see a full fledged build thread over at AVS forums, I'll just stick with finished pics here.

Wood: African Mahogany
Finish: BLO first, General Finishes Java Gel stain, Deft lacquer sprayed with my cheapo HVLP

Enough talk. Pics:Sketchup Concept



Finished:



Naked speakers: (The sub grill is held in by magnets on either side, I forgot to remove it for the picture but you can see the ghost of the driver:


Custom Sub Grill (yes, I pulled the logo off the first one and attached it to mine):


Had to get a carpenter buddy make this crown to match the rest of the room/house. I made the baseboards top and bottom:


Columns (should have made them out of mahogany, budget ran dry- spent it all on speakers )


Bathroom Vanity (unstained mahogany, I love the grain in the panels)


My first attempt at a 4 panel door:


I'll stop there. Thanks for looking. Questions/Comments/Criticisms welcome.

[Brett Baldwin]

I'd say the time and effort were well worth the result. Excellent work. That really looks top notch.

[Jeff Monson]

You did well Rob, I'll bet you get the bug for more cabinets in a short time. I like your design and the finish looks awesome.

[Rob Price]

Here's the build thread: avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1193790

[Peter Aeschliman]

...though shall not covet... though shall not covet....

[Todd Burch]

Awesome Rob!!! I love how African Mahogany so often has the beautiful striping. Your whole theater looks great! Doing major projects like this takes a long time, when all you get is "spare time" to do it in.

The vertical columns under the sconce lighting really gives the room a feel of a theater.

Your joinery really looks good too - nice sharp corners.

Got a "before" picture of the room? What do you think you spent on the built-in piece of the project in materials?

Todd

[Rob Price]

Sorry about the link, I didn't think about that. I have plenty of before and in progress pics over at the other website.

Cost is hard to tease out. I bought all the supplies for the entertainment center and kitchen cabinets and bathroom cabinets at once, as well as the hardware, finish and stain. For everything the cost was just shy of $3k. I can identify about $400 specifically that was spent on the cabinets in the bathroom and kitchen (I bought prefinished 1/2 stock for the drawers, drawer slides, pulls, hinges).

But the wood and plywood was bought in bulk. Maybe $2000 on wood/finish/hinges/hardware just for the entertainment center? I used prefinished ply ($35/sheet) for the interior of the boxes. The mahogany ply was a good bit more. The crown cost a bunch. The wide panels for the doors I had to hire my buddy to hand plane and prepare for me on his belt sander, since my planer wouldn't do the 20" wide board we made the panels from.

[Paul Murphy]

I love the in-cabinet speakers and African mahogany. Your plan sure came together well!

[craig lorence]

Wow simply beautiful. Really like that entertaiment center.

[Jim Becker]

Really nice work from concept drawings through completion. Very rich looking and well executed!