It starts out easy enough: A boy, building furniture with his dad. Well, we wanted to build furniture, but all they did was build one horrendously overbuilt rolling cabinet.
Ten years later, facing a disgusting, messy living room, an angry cat, and a guttural, manly need to create: he decided to do it again.
I wanted something simple, something minimalistic. After studying years and years of good design by buying everything Apple ever, and recently wasting untold hours on Pinterest, I had decided on three simple rules for making the best entertainment center ever:
1. It must be basic. Beauty is in simplicity, not complexity. Minimalism is key.
2. It must be timeless. Build it once, and only once.
3. It should be customizable. Make sure it can accommodate anything you need it to do.
The third one is debatable, but ideal. All those considered, I wanted a very simple, very small, very… easy entertainment center; because the focus isn't on the entertainment center, but the entertainment it's providing, right?
Apparently not. I pitched this to my roommate - it is his TV, and his systems, and his… apartment, so his input is vital. He declined it all.
He wanted something big, loud, and gaudy. To be fair, he himself is big, loud, and gaudy, so it's only right - I suppose. But this presented a problem: How do you make something big, loud and gaudy while also making it basic, timeless, and customizable?
And also, I ran into another very practical problem: we recently bought an Xbox Kinect in preparation of Mass Effect 3. However, since I'm human, and well, caucasian, I also have an odd curiosity about dancing. I downloaded the Dance Central 2 demo and since them have probably wasted about 72ish hours days playing DC 1&2. It's wonderful. It's like a whole new world for me. I can dance whenever I want to, I can leave my friends behind and just dance. I can dance. I can dance!
… except I have no room. Where the Kinect sits now literally leaves me a four inch sweet spot for dancing. "Born this Way," and "Toxic" force me to move out of it, and so the sensor thinks I fail, and so I get mad about being beaten by two Madonna Protogaes. If I can't take on her lackeys, how am I supposed to beat the queen? This must be rectified. I will not let Lady Gaga beat me.
So I need to move the Kinect back, plus make a basic, timeless, customizable, big, loud, and gaudy entertainment center. All while picking up carpentry for the first time since '02. In an apartment, and not ticking off my neighbors.
Lets roll.
The design is basic enough: It's essentially a picnic table top, turned on it's side. The shelving goes in the larger gaps, and has stops and removable dowels to hold it in place. There are cable hooks in the back, and I love it much more than that 1970 microwave cart.
WHAT YOU NEED:
2 2" x 4" 32 inches
2 2" x 4" 18 inches
2 2"x 4" 6 inches (All this can be cut from a 2" x 4" x 10') - $4
5 2" x 6" 5 feet (2 2" x 6" x 10' plus a lumber guy who has lucky scrap) - $10 plus 10 minutes of wasting time.
3 1" x 10" 2 feet (can be Cut from 1 1" x 10" x 6')
8 1" x 1" x 16" (can be cut from 4 1" x 1" x 3'
10 1" x 1" x 1" cubes.
Clamps
Tape Measure/ Ruler
Protractor
22 #12 3" screws
8 #8 1 3/4" screws
Power Saw - I used a handheld Jigsaw but it was, in retrospect, DEFINITELY the wrong tool for the job. If you have a table saw, that'd be optimal.
Handheld saw - for detail and cleaning up rough edges.
Drill w/ 1/2" bit
1/2" dowel - 2+ feet
Sandpaper - lots of sandpaper
8 hooks that best fit your wiring needs - I threw the packaging away before I got the size off of it this, but this is a very subjective thing anyway. General rule: use the size larger than the one you think will work for your wiring needs.
All said and done, this cost me about $68 and four hours. I personally can't beat that for an entertainment center.
Ten years later, facing a disgusting, messy living room, an angry cat, and a guttural, manly need to create: he decided to do it again.
I wanted something simple, something minimalistic. After studying years and years of good design by buying everything Apple ever, and recently wasting untold hours on Pinterest, I had decided on three simple rules for making the best entertainment center ever:
1. It must be basic. Beauty is in simplicity, not complexity. Minimalism is key.
2. It must be timeless. Build it once, and only once.
3. It should be customizable. Make sure it can accommodate anything you need it to do.
The third one is debatable, but ideal. All those considered, I wanted a very simple, very small, very… easy entertainment center; because the focus isn't on the entertainment center, but the entertainment it's providing, right?
Apparently not. I pitched this to my roommate - it is his TV, and his systems, and his… apartment, so his input is vital. He declined it all.
He wanted something big, loud, and gaudy. To be fair, he himself is big, loud, and gaudy, so it's only right - I suppose. But this presented a problem: How do you make something big, loud and gaudy while also making it basic, timeless, and customizable?
And also, I ran into another very practical problem: we recently bought an Xbox Kinect in preparation of Mass Effect 3. However, since I'm human, and well, caucasian, I also have an odd curiosity about dancing. I downloaded the Dance Central 2 demo and since them have probably wasted about 72ish hours days playing DC 1&2. It's wonderful. It's like a whole new world for me. I can dance whenever I want to, I can leave my friends behind and just dance. I can dance. I can dance!
… except I have no room. Where the Kinect sits now literally leaves me a four inch sweet spot for dancing. "Born this Way," and "Toxic" force me to move out of it, and so the sensor thinks I fail, and so I get mad about being beaten by two Madonna Protogaes. If I can't take on her lackeys, how am I supposed to beat the queen? This must be rectified. I will not let Lady Gaga beat me.
So I need to move the Kinect back, plus make a basic, timeless, customizable, big, loud, and gaudy entertainment center. All while picking up carpentry for the first time since '02. In an apartment, and not ticking off my neighbors.
Lets roll.
The design is basic enough: It's essentially a picnic table top, turned on it's side. The shelving goes in the larger gaps, and has stops and removable dowels to hold it in place. There are cable hooks in the back, and I love it much more than that 1970 microwave cart.
WHAT YOU NEED:
2 2" x 4" 32 inches
2 2" x 4" 18 inches
2 2"x 4" 6 inches (All this can be cut from a 2" x 4" x 10') - $4
5 2" x 6" 5 feet (2 2" x 6" x 10' plus a lumber guy who has lucky scrap) - $10 plus 10 minutes of wasting time.
3 1" x 10" 2 feet (can be Cut from 1 1" x 10" x 6')
8 1" x 1" x 16" (can be cut from 4 1" x 1" x 3'
10 1" x 1" x 1" cubes.
Clamps
Tape Measure/ Ruler
Protractor
22 #12 3" screws
8 #8 1 3/4" screws
Power Saw - I used a handheld Jigsaw but it was, in retrospect, DEFINITELY the wrong tool for the job. If you have a table saw, that'd be optimal.
Handheld saw - for detail and cleaning up rough edges.
Drill w/ 1/2" bit
1/2" dowel - 2+ feet
Sandpaper - lots of sandpaper
8 hooks that best fit your wiring needs - I threw the packaging away before I got the size off of it this, but this is a very subjective thing anyway. General rule: use the size larger than the one you think will work for your wiring needs.
All said and done, this cost me about $68 and four hours. I personally can't beat that for an entertainment center.
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Signing UpStep 1: First things First
To begin, mark each of the 2x6's on one of their wide faces - whichever face you want to be against the wall, preferably. These markings will be for 20 of the #12 3" screws that will hold the planks onto the 2x4 supports. Begin by marking them one foot from each lengthwise edge. Draw a line that spans the width of the board, and then mark 1 3/8" (Approx. a quarter of the board's true width) from each width-wise (Is that a word?) edge.
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You said that the structure is basically a picnic table turned sideways which is elegant but you forgot that now the most of the force vectors are at 90 degrees to the picnic table and you didn't adjust accordingly.
(1) The 2x6 crosspieces are overkill. Unless done for aesthetics, they won't add much to the structure. They are used in picnic tables to provide a wide flat strong surface but now you are using them edge on so everything below an inch or so is a structural waste.
You won't be hanging anything heavy enough to come close to stressing the beams and they add a lot of unnecessary weight. I think 3/4 inch (750 mil) birch plywood would work just as well with a stiffener strip on the backside. It would also look better.
(2) The weak point in the design is the #12 screws used to secure the 2x6's to the 2x4. While such screws would work great foe holding down a picnic table top, they are to small to safely support a vertical/shearing weight. All the weight of the structure is now concentrated on a very small area of bottom of the screw so the screws will gradually cut into the wood and loosen. Retightening them in the same hole will just aggregate the problem. They may also simple shear off is suddenly stressed.
Technically speaking, screws are not intended to be used to resist a shearing force because they are to hard and brittle. Instead, nails are the preferred solution because nails are relative soft and will gently bend instead of breaking.
However, nobody uses nails much anymore because they aren't convenient or take easily apart. In this case I recommend you use 1/4 inch (6.35 mil) x 3 inch (76.2 mil) lag screws (or larger).
Even better, use hardwood dowels. Screw everything together like you have it now but then remove the top screw at every join and drill out a hole to take a 3/4 dowel. Drive the dowel in snuggly and know the vertical shearing force is spread out over the bottom surface area of the dowel instead of being concentrated on the screw. The remaining screw keeps the boards clamped together in the horizontal plane.
3) I might have missed it but it looks like you have no racking support. Racking is the left or rich motion of a square frame that pivots on the corners turning a rectangle into a trapezoid. This will stress your joints and eventually cause them to snap or rotate and collapse.
You need a cross piece running from the back top to the back bottom of the vertical 2x4s to prevent them moving left or right. You could also use a sheet of hardboard across the entire back (as commonly seen in bookcases.)
I'm not 100% sure I could duplicate that following your instructions though. Maybe add a few more photos from different angles so you can see how everything fits together.
I did have a hard time taking photos of this, as I had no camera man and only a puny phone cam on my thunderbolt. I wish I had taken more photos, but I got wrapped up in the building it and often forgot. I do plan on taking detailed retrospect pics of the stop/lock system and the stand after the furniture challenge is completely done on the off chance people like this, but until then I can't edit it.
Are there other areas that you think need more detailed pics?