My first woodworking rehab project

This past year we bought a new flat screen LED TV for the family to replace our 14 year old monster. With that, we wanted to get a new entertainment center/cabinet. After looking around, and not finding anything to suit our tastes, I go the idea to buy an old buffet cabinet or hutch and repurpose it. So, after spending a month or so searching Facebook groups and Craigslist, I found one for $65. Here’s what it looked like before:

Here are some pics of the build process. I stripped this thing down with Citrustrip, since the sides and top are particle board with oak laminate. I removed all of the base trim and replaced it with solid oak, adding 2 inches of height. I moved the partition to the other side and cut the shelf down. Then, I put in a partial shelf and boxed it in, with a white light switch and plate on the front. this is wired into an old air hockey table fan that I’m using as a cooling fan for our Sony PS3 console. It gets ridiculously hot inside a cabinet like this! I also wanted a drawer for all of our controllers, so I planned for that as well. We have a ton of DVDs, so storage was the main goal for the cabinet. The shelves in the DVD side are all solid oak also. I chose Bombay mahogany for the stain color to match an aquarium stand I built for Robin a few years ago. I love this color of wood! Add in satin nickle hinges and handles, and it looks pretty nice.

And, after a little under 2 months of working a few days here and there, it’s all finished. I put the last door on it this evening, after picking up some 1/4″ plexiglass for the window the other day. Tempered glass would have been better, but not at $50 for a piece. This cost me less than $20 and looks good. Overall, counting the original purchase, I have about $340 into it, and that’s still much cheaper than buying one at the big box stores.