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I made this almost 15 Years ago, my wife and I were shopping for wall units and found plenty that we liked, but for the money and the cheap particle board they were made out of to spend $3700 was out of the question. That's when I said I could build something better for a lot less money. "Do it" she said and that what got me back into woodworking on a regular basis. since then I don't buy any furniture just the wood to make what we, (she) wants.

I moved almost 3 years ago and we just pushed the wall unit up against the wall where we wanted it, and have never leveled it. Not that I don't want to or that I am too lazy, but because she and my daughter have loaded it with so much junk that I told them ," when you clean it off then i will level it"

Its made from 3/4 birch plywood and some simple edge banding, with a natural stain & and about 6 coats of polyurethane. It needs a good waxing, but when its free of junk I will take care of that. The apartment we lived in had a very small living room so I had wanted the doors to open and then tuck away, it cost about $35 each for the hinges that allowed me to slid the doors into the unit once they were opened, The doors have 1/4" Plexiglass covered with auto window tint as we had no children at the time but plenty of relatives and friends. I didn't want to chance one of them knocking into the doors & getting seriously hurt, (good thing, when my daughter and godson were very small they used to press there hands against the doors and sometimes bang on them). The unit was made in 3 pieces so we could place them on their own if we wanted to.

The shelves in the center come out as one side was for a mini bar with ice bucket and the other side was for my turntable, (yes I still have it, and I have plenty of records as well). Since I am putting the stereo equipment in the basement of my new house that is no longer needed.

Total cost materials about $425, oh and the design on the bottom doors was my wife's idea, not bad, think I'll keep her.

In all fairness one of the reasons its so filled is because we are remodeling the kitchen and basement, plus the cat likes to climb in where he shouldn't be and knock the plug out of the TV.

So there it is if you have any questions like, why my wife didn't kill me for building this entire unit on top of our dining room table in our one bedroom apartment, still not sure how I got away with that ;-)

Sorry about the pictures not being too good, still have not found the camera, so using the cell phone.

Gallery

Comments

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marty,This is nice & a great job !! I want one like it too. I bet it took you some time to build it?
 

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Hi Willie, not that bad, since it was in my apartment for all the construction, anytime I was home I worked on it. I would say the construction of all pieces about two weeks. The finishing took some time maybe a week and a half to 2 weeks for the for the units and another two weeks for the shelves. Funny it only took two days to load it up to max capacity with junk.
All in all about a solid month and a half.
 

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An apartment build? Nice, You can never keep a wood worker down. I like the hinges on this, a real space saver. Great unit & nice design on the front, it's nice when your wife gets involved isn't it? Real nice piece, it looks as though it's holding up real good.
Mark~
 

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Very nice piece of work. Why buy when you can make.
 

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great piece ! I think being a woodworker makes it hard to buy many things…except tools; never have enough tools….LOL. We look at a lot of things in stores and immediately estimate design and material costs. I love the doors. Were they hard to set up to slide in out of the way?
 

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Hi Juriathe, the doors were actually pretty easy to setup. It's two basically drawer slides with European hinges connected to them, there is also a plate attached to each slide as well, right below the hinge. All you do is install the slides making them perfectly parallel to each other, you attach a long board beteweem the slides which forces them to move in unison, then just attach the hinges to the door. Before I knew how to do I was very put off by it. I purchased them from MSC industrial, at the rime they were the only ones that had them at a reasonable price.
 

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Thank you all for the kind words, it was nice after having this for so many years and hearing from fellow woodworkers on this project.
 

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looks like it has held up well, it's a fine looking piece
 

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thanks for the tips, Marty. I would have never thought of that connecting bar to make them move in unison, and I had already been sketching out an idea so I wouldn't forget this.
 

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Nice piece, definitely something to be proud of!
 
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