A Media Wall

Here are pictures of a Media Wall I have finally completed.This project began with design meetings with the client more than a year ago. After settling on a design the clients had to postpone the project to focus on other matters. We resumed discussions last July or so and came to agree on this basic design:

The project is made from Sapele veneers and hardwood. The Project features a lower bank of cabinets each with a center shelf. These store games and toys. The slim “component cabinet” holds the various media electronics and DVD’s and CD’. A High Definition TV is mounted above the component cabinet and is covered by sliding doors in a custom track. Flanking the TV are shelves for books and pictures that run to the cathedral ceiling.

The cathedral ceiling is nearly twenty feet on the left or high side and just under 9 feet on the right or low side.

The stray speaker chord will soon be spliced and routed through holes that are already drilled.

I started the finish process with just polyurethane but a project this big is destined to show off the variations in the woods response to the finish. and the clients wanted a more uniform color across the piece so I used Bartley’s English Chestnut Gel stain and Poly. If my space would have allowed it would have been better to spray a toned lacquer. Some of the finishing was done on site and that just added to the inefficiencies of the process. Actual construction of this project spanned approx nine months. I worked on various sections at a time and had multiple installation sessions. I worked on other pieces in between work on this project. While the clients are pleased, I am mostly pleased to be finished! My shop is just not logistically correct for a project of this type. The weather was pushing me last autumn to get lower sections done and finished before it was too cold to apply the finish in my unheated barn. Over the winter I built and finished the various shelving sections in my basement but I couldn’t push spring to get here fast enough to get the final sections completed. This is a difficult project to photograph as I was shooting from the dining area trying to avoid other furniture that was in front of me and had been moved for installation. I will shoot a few more pics in a week or so when the shelves have been filled. I am tired!

Alan