I figured I should stop lurking and make a post I'm working on an entertainment center and fireplace surround in our house. I'll start with a drawing of my current work in progress (drawing is to scale).



Some commentary:

The existing room has the fireplace, tile surround and tile hearth already present and I don't want to change that much at all. The entertainment center will be filling an existing (finished) drywalled hole. The hole is 93" wide, 49" high in the center, 44" high at the edges with a gentle arch (as shown).

As I have it now, it's all full overlay doors w/ glass. The sets of three drawers below will be L shaped to hold CDs/DVDs w/ undermount slides. Standing by the TV you can look into the side of a pulled out drawer. I intend to build the EC out of lyptus.

The fireplace/mantel surround I'm not sure about. I've played with a bunch of different options and haven't gotten something I like yet. The picture above seems a bit bottom heavy. I prefer to paint the surround also (house trim is painted white), but I'm not sure if/how to integrate the two. I'll try and get a picture of the room up to give more ideas.

Other thoughts:

I've been trying to work in a gentle bow in the front of the shelf above/below the TV. It may be too many curves though.

Because it's such a wide area, I've been trying to get at least different depth changes in the fireplace.

Thoughts? Comments? Good and bad welcome. This will probably be a slowly evolving design...

-Josh