Introduction: Media Cabinet

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Inspired by Crate and Barrel designs, I decided to build me one very affordable Media cabinet.

@ C&B they use it as a space divider. It could fit many purposes and yet stand solid and strong!

For this project You would need

  • 7 x 2Mx30CM Wood Shelfs (Pine or Oak - depending on Budget )
  • 2 x 2Mx4cCM Flat Metal Bars
  • Electric Drill
  • Wood Screws
  • Chisels 2,3,4 CM
  • Wood filer
  • Wood Saw
  • Angle Ruler
  • Pencil
  • Wood Hammer (Or a Hammer with Rubber head)
  • Good Energy :) & Music

Paint can be an option, however we decided to keep it in natural wood color.

Step 1: Making the Dovetails

First I had to cut the Shelves to 120CMx30CM(A) each and keep 36CMx30CM(B) for the Edges. That can easily be ordered or cut using a table saw.

In order to make the edges more interesting, I decided to make them in dovetails instead of just gluing or screwing them together.

The main steps are to

  1. Mark the edges of the A and make the cuts (Using the angle ruler, you may choose an angle of your liking)
  2. Place B in a 90 degree angle on A and mark the rest of the puzzle.
  3. After a lot of cutting, the edges should fit in.

In order to have a clean cut, use the Chisels and hammer it down slowly removing any extra wood every now and then. This step requires a lot of patience and endurance. Good luck.

An easy tutorial that helped me a lot was the below.

Step 2: Building the Puzzle

On a table or the floor, I tried to build in the puzzle.

I decided to test the shape and see how correct my angles were.

This step is just a quality control step were I identified the edges that needed more smoothing and the exact adjustments. A wooden filer was needed.

Step 3: Installing the Flat Bars

In order to have a smooth finish, I decided to make groves into the shelves so the metal bars would fit exactly in.

With a pencil I marked 15CM away from the edge a 4CMx2CM rectangle.

  1. With the Wood Hand Saw I made the 2CM cuts
  2. then with the Chisel and hammer it was a very easy task to cut thru the wood.

Some smoothing was needed using a wood filer

After all the groves are made, Using the electric drill, I made the necessarry holes into the metal rods based on the 36CM distances between each shelf.

Note: I made them 36CM since we are using 33 Disks in our turn table and we needed the extra room for additional art books.

Once all was screwed in, I had to put the backside. I used a drill and wooden screws to attach the backside to the shelves.

I prefer to drill the wood before using the screws in order to avoid unnecessary cracks in the wood.

Step 4: Making Sure It Stands & Filling It Up.

After sometime left on the floor, I made sure that the wood had already taken the correct shape and was ready to stand.

In order to hide all the electrical cables (as much as I could ;P ) I made 3CM holes into the back board on the levels where power cables, speaker cables and network cables needed to pass.

In this setup there is a special Airplay receiver using raspberry pi (I will post a project on that soon) that I added to the old school amplifier. Now we can airplay our music as well as listen to records from the 30s on the same amp and high quality speakers.

I apologize if I don't have documented photos or videos since I made this project a while back and didn't properly document it for a publication. I will be open to your questions if you are interested in such a piece for your living.

cheers,