Pimp My Hutch!

Our son is going off to college and I was going to buy a TV for his dorm room but since he has limited space I bought him an LED projector instead so he can connect his laptop and watch Netflix, YouTube, ESPN or even stream live TV from our Slingbox at home. The problem is that inexpensive LED projectors don't have good keystone correction so the projector needs to be almost at the same height as the screen to get a distortion-free image. I decided to buy a hutch to go over his dorm room desk that the projector could sit on and also to house his bookshelf speakers to clear up some desk space.

Step 1:

After much online research I settled on this Better Homes and Gardens Hutch for $50. It is nice and wide and the reviews said it was fairly heavy which I wanted so it would be stable and not prone to tipping over since we can't fasten it to the dorm room desk in any way.

Step 2:

The hutch arrived and I started putting it together.

Step 3:

I decided to mount an LED light strip under the hutch as a reading light. I had to buy a 12V power supply, dimmer switch and also some mounting clips to keep the light strip from falling down if the double-sided tape fails which is common with LED strips.

Step 4:

The reviews said the rear backing material was nothing more than cardboard but that is giving cardboard a bad name...it was as thin as poster board! I decided to buy some underlayment plywood from Home Depot to screw to the back of the hutch to give it some strength. I also drilled 1-inch holes for the speaker cables. The bare edges of the plywood really stood out so I painted them with a black Sharpie.

Step 5:

Now that the hutch had a more solid backing, I decided to mount some cork board to it. The board was just a few inches too short to span the entire width of the hutch so I used 1-inch quarter-round to give it a faux-frame and fill in the gaps. I left a 1-inch gap at the bottom to accommodate cabling.

Step 6:

The speakers fit perfectly!

Step 7:

Here it is in his dorm room.

Step 8:

And here is the projected image. Hopefully it will provide some entertainment and give him a much-needed study break. Thanks for looking!