TV UNIT - IDEA

It’s this year’s damp summer blockbuster in the trio of highly acclaimed movies aptly titled: Office Unit, Library Unit and soon to be released - TV Unit.

Not more woodwork! The other half has considered putting in for increased carpentry pay on the back of the recently announced train strikes. Yep, the railways were never going to be satisfied with a decent wage settlement. Greedy bastards deserve to be sent to Rwanda! As I told him – it's 3 bottles of beer and that’s my final offer. I'll throw in a pizza as well if all productivity targets are met.

Anyway, we’re not here to talk politics (well maybe not today….) but instead to treat you all to yet another lengthy ramble on about our latest DIY project. Thanks to the internet, you can bore the world to tears from the comfort of your own sofa with a gadget that does what it says on the tin – laptop. It’s currently perched on my lap top scorching my thighs with its red-hot battery pack like a reverse-engineered 80s sunbed.

So, TV Unit. Can’t be all that hard to build one, can it? Well, it wouldn’t be if I’d gone with a straightforward design but that’s never the case in our house. Here’s one I spotted earlier that I kind of liked the look of:

I'd like one of these for my telly

I thought this unit ideal because my existing Cuba cabinet could be incorporated as the base section in the same way as we’d done for the library unit.

All we have to do is build it on top of the existing cabinet

As always, it’s one thing to have an idea but then there are the practicalities to consider. What are you going to put on the shelves? How much space does a wall hung TV take up? Will I be able to reach the plug sockets from the front? How will I disguise all the cabling at the back? There are a million and one things to figure out before you can even put pen to paper to come up with some sort of design plan to follow.

A very simplistic plan

Stuff. Yep, that’s the biggest problem. Stuff? What like? DVD’s that’s what. Growing up in the materialistic 70s/80s, life largely seemed to revolve around acquiring stuff – books, records, beer mats, gig ticket stubs, tartan trousers etc etc. I may have outgrown the tartan trousers from my Bay City Roller years but the books, records and DVDs have endured throughout the ages, being carted from house to house expecting to be accommodated rent free. I can see why today’s youth prefer downloads instead of hoarding. It must feel so much more liberating not to be surrounded by dust gathering clutter.

But being a techno-dino I much prefer something tangible I can get my hands round which brings me back to the issue of DVDs and how to best create space for these in this new TV unit.

Based on the photograph, I’ve come up with a similar design for a unit that can incorporate my vast DVD collection, lovely Art Deco lamp and other hoarded tat around a wall hung telly.

And now to put on the kettle, slide into my painting trousers and spend the rest of the week mopping the other half’s fevered brow as he saws through the mountain of pineboard squatting in the garage like a giant timber-loined sumo wrestler.