Contemporary Walnut Entertainment Center

I built this for a friend who needed to cover a big 4” hole in the wall where a bunch of wires for surround sound, television, etc. were coming out of the brick. He wanted to create something simple and that complimented the house. It’s a really neat contemporary home in Paradise Valley designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright that has a ton of strange organic lines and textures to it. I wanted to create something that mimicd the houses design and gave it the beauty of REAL wood. We also needed to make it functional by including a nice and neat way to display the electronics for the surround sound and get rid of all the wire mess. This is what I came up with.

The two wooden sides are held together by steel threaded rod that is running through anodized aluminum tube. The tubes are sunk into the walnut to tighten up the look. The glass shelves are kept off the tubes with 1/16” thick rubber gaskets. There are 5 black office desk inserts to help organize the cables through to the inside. There’s plenty of room and 2” holes through the supports on the inside to help organize the wires.

The side on the left of the picture is triangular and completely asymmetrical at the top. There was a need to slant it downward to match the ceiling and the 45° triangular vertical side makes it easy to see the kitchen once you walk through the front door. It really opens up the room. The other side I wanted to make a completely different height and shape just to add to the bizarreness of it all. I think it turned out cool. If you could see more of the house you’d be able to make a better judgement of how it fits, but maybe later I’ll add some more pics.

I love designing this kind of stuff from scratch. I think you learn more because you have to solve problems that aren’t standardized. It makes you more creative by necessity.

-- Thomas Porter, Phoenix, AZ, www.thomasporter.com