For this segment of HouseCalls, Ron's traveling toolbox arrives in Windermere, Florida, located near the Orlando area. Here, Rita Brockway, who is ready to learn a little something about power tools and home improvement, is eagerly awaiting Ron's arrival. Rita has an alcove in her living room that would be perfect for a built-in home entertainment center. She needs a place for her television, VCR and stereo, and she would also like to store books, knick-knacks, and various other items.
Click Here For a list of what
you will need in order to complete this project.
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1. Make a drawing:
- The first step in nearly any custom building project is to draw a rough sketch of the project. Rita wanted a base section with doors and drawers for plenty of out-of-sight storage. Above, Ron designed three cabinets with adjustable shelving. Finally, to give the project a professional, built-in look Ron designed trim around the outside edge of the structure.
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2. Base cabinets:
- To save time, money and a lot of work, they constructed the base from stock kitchen cabinets purchased at the nearby home improvement center. The cabinets are first clamped together and then secured with #10 x 2 ½" flat head screws. On each end they attached a filler strip to conceal the space between the cabinets and the wall.
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- Before setting the base section into place, they cut holes in the back of the cabinets with a jigsaw to provide access to the electrical outlets and the television cable jack. They also used a hole saw to bore holes through the sides of each cabinet to allow wires to be run wherever needed between the cabinets.
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3. Countertop:
- The next step was to measure for the width and depth of the countertop. They transferred these measurements to a sheet of three-quarter-inch plywood and then cut it to size using a circular saw and a clamp-on straight edge as a guide.
- Next, they used a nail gun to attach the plywood to the cabinets below.
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- A piece of one-by-eight poplar, notched to fit around the corners, was used to conceal the edge of the plywood. This was also attached to the cabinets with a nail gun.
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TIP:
If you were building a wet bar or a built-in side bar, you could stop right here. Of course you would have to attach a finished countertop of plastic laminate, granite, or tile. But the point is this is a great way to create built-in base cabinets using off-the-shelf kitchen cabinets. These go together in a very short time and the cost can be quite reasonable. |
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4. Shelving:
- The upper portion of the entertainment center was made in three sections. The center section would be for the television and the two side sections for books, audio equipment and collectibles.
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- Once again using the circular saw and a clamp-on straight edge as a guide, they cut the sides, bottoms and tops of each section from sheets of three-quarter inch birch veneer plywood.
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- The upper section of the entertainment center was designed to have adjustable shelves. These shelves were supported by pins, which were set into a series of holes. It is extremely important that the holes begin at the same point, usually near the bottom, and they are spaced at precisely the same distance apart.
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- After measuring and drawing a baseline, Ron aligned and then clamped a pre-drilled plastic template to the cabinet side. Using a self-centering drill bit, he then drilled the series of holes about two-thirds of the way through the wood. This process was repeated on all of the cabinet sides.
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- The face of the cabinet-grade plywood they selected for this project,was smooth and clean, but like most plywood, the edges were rough and unfinished. To conceal them, Ron applied edge banding, which is a thin strip of wood with a heat activated adhesive backing. The heat was applied with a household iron. Edge banding can be trimmed using a razor blade, but Ron used an edge banding trimmer, which is a special tool designed just for this purpose. After trimming and sanding the edges, the plywood panels looked just like solid wood.
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- The edge of each shelf was faced with a solid piece of one-by-two lumber, attached with a bead of wood adhesive and then reinforced with nails using a pneumatic nail gun. The edges made the shelves more rigid and gave them a thicker, more substantial appearance. Wood filler was used to fill the nail holes.
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5. Assembly:
- After all of the pieces were cut for the three cabinet sections, each one was assembled individually. Ron laid all the pieces out on the table before gluing and nailing them together. To help position these pieces for assembly and to make them stronger, Ron recommended using wooden biscuits or splines.
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- With the biscuits in place, more glue was applied to the surface of the wood and the pieces were pressed firmly together. The splines held everything in the correct position while the two pieces were nailed together for added strength.
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- They completed this same assembly pr ocess for all three upper cabinets and then carried each one back into the house.
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