We finally decided to add a bookcase and tv unit to the family room. One of the biggest decisions for the project was, how big a TV? We decided on 65″ as the max. It seemed to give us the best compromise of seating distance.
The wall we were using is 130″ from corner to edge of existing trim. This allowed me to design three 20″ wide bookcases and a 61″ wide TV center. The TV center has four 30″ low shelves and one 61″ upper shelf. There is also an equipment shelf with sliding doors to hide all the wires. I moved the cable, power and LAN outlets to all terminate inside the equipment shelf. Kim is pleased that all wires are hidden from view.
I built and spray painted the three bookcase towers in the shop with Sherwin-Williams ProClassic Waterborne Interior Acrylic Enamel. They were easy enough to move around and place into position.
The TV center was too big to want to move as a single unit. So, there is the lower unit (bookshelves), the mid unit (TV and equipment) and the upper unit (wide bookshelf).
All the shelves and trim are aligned with Festool Domino’s. The units connect together with a double row of dominoes in the front trim. These “pull” the units together. This method eliminated the need for any connecting hardware. I glued them into the trim and beveled the opposite end to help guide into the mating mortises on the unit side panels. Each tower has a nailing strip at top and bottom, and I drove 3″ screws into studs for support.
I simply grooved the equipment shelf, top and bottom, and added a couple sliding, bypass doors. All the equipment is RF, so the doors do not block any control signals.
Finally, I wrapped the wires from the TV to the equipment shelf in white cable wrap to make them disappear.
While I considered the size of our cable box, streaming device, and DVD player, I did not consider any gaming consoles. If I had, I would have made the bottom couple shelves deeper. We keep that stuff in the basement play/game room and had no plans to bring it into our family room.
I was concerned that adding this would make the room feel smaller. I was absolutely wrong! The white brightens that end of the room considerably and actually improved the feel of the room.
It only took us a day to fill the shelves. We still have more books than we have shelves in this bookcase and TV unit. We will rotate collections in and out to keep it organic. It already feels like this was always part of the room.