Hickory...Dickory...Done...

It has taken a while to put together all the lovely Hickory cabinets but our entertainment/media center is now finally completed. There were a couple of obstacles that had to be overcome but my very astute, engineer of a hubby figured ways to make things work.

Photo above...One problem John faced with the unit above involved the center section, the unit that contains 4 doors and 2 drawers and sits directly beneath the HDTV. We realized too late that we should have ordered either a longer top section or we should have had them finish off all 3 of the outer edges on the furniture top. Trying to figure out how to fill in the corners to this top section was a real bear...grrrr!

Photo left below...Mitered corner. The front edge was the only edge on the furniture top that was finished off. John had to figure out how to incorporate a mitered corner in order to bring a piece of edging around the sides and cover up the unfinished side edges. Another problem was that things didn't line up 100% so he ended up making the corner section in two pieces and had to route out the back of the longer piece to compensate for the unevenness. Believe me it really would take a detail diagram to explain it all, but now things match and look even instead of out of kilter.


Photo Right above...Of course this did leave some gaps that required a chunk of caulking !

Photo Below...Behind the right doors in the center unit is storage for musical CDs and video DVDs.

Photo Below...One large drawer on the Far Right Tower unit holds video VHS tapes...hey you think that's old ? We also have a cache of Beta Max tapes too ! And we still have the old Beta Max player/recorder. Bet a lot of you are too young to even know what Beta Max was. LOL

Photo Below...Same Right Tower unit, top small drawer is perfect for storing all our old cassette music tapes.

Photo Below...Left Tower unit. One of the large, deep drawers is now home to more of our VHS tapes.

Photo Below...A true Dinosaur...old vinyl LP records. This is John's collection of albums, and yes we do play them every once in a while.

Photo Below Left...Still have lots of storage space as the VHS recorder/player and the DVD player haven't filled up this tower.


Photo Above Right...This tower is pretty much occupied with all the different sterio components, from our "antique" phonograph (record player) to the CD player, the Cassette player, and of course the radio and the amp. Since I mentioned antiques I could mention that, somewhere in our attic , John also has an old reel to reel tape deck.

Photo below...This unit was constructed by John over a year ago. It too is made from hickory cabinet units and it is a lovely and useful part of our dinning area.

Photo Below...Better look at the top section of the dinning room "hutch"...yeah I need to get serious and do some decorating inside those glass doors. Right now my collection of ceramic pitchers is rather hodge-podge.

And as Porky the Pig would say "T-T-T-T-That's all F-F-F-Folks"

Who's in the Details ?

They say that; "The devil is in the details", though I've also heard it said that; "God is in the details" but whichever way you prefer the nitty-gritty, fine tuning, nit-picking details take more time than the "Big Picture".
For those of you who have had a home built from scratch you may well remember how quickly the foundation went down, walls went up and roof attached, however things like installing base boards, trim work, tiles, cabinets, miles of chalking and painting, touch-ups and more touch-ups; seemed to go on forever. And so it has been with our media center. The cabinet boxes were a cinch to install...sort of...at least compared to adding the crown moldings and making all the angle cuts on the furniture top that doesn't quite fit because the walls are not totally level...walls are never "totally" level...maybe that's a Murphy's Laws thing?

Photo above...doors and drawers are in and the baseboard at the back wall has been reinstalled, but the base of the media center has gaps caused by shims, the floor is not totally level. Soooo...

Photo above...we decide that something was needed to conceal the shims that were placed under the base of the cabinet and gaps resulting from these shims. Something to go around the base of the cabinets to hide this unattractive "fix" and, as luck would have it, we found a nice cove molding in a perfect color and just the right size. How fortuitous ! Sometimes things do go right !

The cabinets are a hickory wood, I love the character of this wood, it's squirrlley patterns and sharp dark to light contrasts in its grain. Now the next problem to surmount is the furniture top that doesn't quite fix!