TV UNIT - SIDE SHELVES

With all the timber cut, stained and painted construction can finally begin starting with the side shelves.

Side panels primed, painted with 2 coats of black matt multi-surface paint

Unlike the other wall units we’ve made, this one will not strictly be symmetrical. The long panel on the left is to be divided into 5 compartments; four tall enough to store DVDs and the top one for decorative bits.

The long panel on the right is to be divided into 2 compartments; a very tall one to house my beautiful Art Deco lamp with a top section aligned at the same height as the left side.

Screw small stained shelf pieces into position from the back of the long black painted side panels as if you were making half a fishbone. 

Aligning the shelves from the front

Countersink screws to fix stained shelf from the back of panel

When this panel is put into position, the shelves float in mid air but will be secured to a stained upright once the shaped lower shelf is slid into position.

Half a fishbone type of shelf

Before screwing the vertical panel onto the floating ends of the shelves or positioning the shaped shelf there is the small matter of power. Not the all-consuming power wielded by Sauron wearing the one ring but electrical power for your TV and other gadgetry. One bar to rule them all….

6 gang surge protection power bar - purchased from Amazon

I’ve purchased a 6 gang power bar with surge protection to hang on the wall under the shaped shelf. Fit your power source to the wall before positioning the shaped shelf. It’s also a good idea while there is no shelf in place to connect up any components or speakers so that you can run the cables up the unit sides as you build it.

Slide lower shelf into place then work out where to fit the power bar

Remove shelf, fit power bar then check shelf fits afterwards

Ready for part II

Everything should be ready for the next bit of the build phase which is putting together the shaped shelf and compartment housing your gadgetry.

TV UNIT BEGUN

Hurricane Ernesto, Storm Lilian – how good of you to drop by. Just in time for the bank holiday weekend. Are you thinking of hanging around long? No. Good. I’d hate for my eagerly awaited extra-long time off work to be rudely interrupted by wind. It’s bad enough having to deal with the ‘whooosh’ from the other half’s emission-producing fart factory without additional gusts from inclement weather.

Anyhow I’ve little time to dwell on the fickle nature of the British summer because there’s a TV unit to be made. Shut the door on your way out.

You’d think that being a smaller, more simplistic looking unit than those previously constructed, this one would be built in a flash but we’ve already hit a number of snags. It’s all so annoying!

Where do we start?

Thanks to that inconvenient sticking out bit of mantlepiece, we’ve realised that the TV unit can’t be made up as one piece then slid back into its final position. It also can’t be rotated in as a complete single piece which means having to come up with a creative construction solution or basically build it in situ. Once in, it can never come out.

Dry building the sides and top shelves to see if it'll fit

Then there’s the hole in the wall. It houses a wall vent presumable fitted by the previous owners because they may have had an old gas or coal fire but it’s exactly where you’d want to position your side panel. Templating round the vent would be a bit of a bitch so instead the unit’s side panel will sit partly on top of the hole and the vent grille will be cut down to sit alongside the wood.

Vent hole in the way

To mirror the library unit, I wanted the side and top panels cut as straight lengths then painted black. There are also a couple of small drawer units to be incorporated on each side like before but the biggest set-back is the lower shelf. I wanted the lowest shelf to be the same width as the Cuba cabinet ie 40 cm instead of 30 cm. But the side panels are not as wide as the shelf. How to get round this?

The only solution we can come up with is to inset the side panels into the wider shelf by cutting out a small section. 

Overcoming the different sized wood

Unfortunately, this wider shelf cannot be screwed to the side panels so is being supported largely by the small drawer units and a couple of vertical supports. I am hoping this will be enough to prevent warping but worst-case scenario, an additional central support piece can be added.

Side drawer units supporting the large lower shelf

All of these things have added a unique set of challenges to what I thought would be a very straightforward TV unit project so much so that my head hurts just thinking about it. Get that kettle on again. More tea is needed to lubricate these little grey cells!

Pulling it all together

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.

SCOTNEY CASTLE

Squeezing in a bit of recreational rest before embarking on what I hope will be our final furniture building project with a day out at the picturesque Scotney Castle.

Not far from Tunbridge Wells, this beautiful stately pile is perfect for a relaxing day out.

Scotney Castle - main house

For gardeners, there’s a delightful walled garden filled with colourful flowers, fruit and veg.

The Walled Garden

Bees also enjoying the garden

Bumper pumpkin patch

For those who like property porn, there’s a wonderful country house to explore. Clearly the Hussey family loved wood panelling and libraries judging by the copious amount of both things in almost every room.

Gorgeous wood panelled staircase

Purchased from TKMaxx?

Cosily furnished lounge

Imagine sleeping in one of these

Or this bed?

Being an ardent book lover myself, cue a million photos of bookcases and close examination of the construction of these.

How did they make those bookcases?

More books than we've got

Anyone earwigging our conversations as we roamed from room to room would think we were interior designers rather than a couple of over-enthusiastic DIY duffers, our running commentary on decorative pelmets, the merits of dowelled joints or the durability of water colour prints no doubt an amusement to all.

Love that pantry

For outdoor explorers, the estate has numerous walks including a secluded Quarry Garden or paths leading down to the original castle building, a rather fairy tale structure surrounded by its own lily pad filled moat.

Lots of lovely walks around the estate

The picturesque old castle

I almost preferred the old ruined castle in terms of its dreamy, story-book exterior and beautiful setting but could see why the party-throwing poshos that previously owned this estate would have wanted a much bigger house with modern amenities.

Like a fairytale don't you think?

In a way, you’ve got to feel sorry for these aristos. Imagine being left an enormous estate because it’s been in your family for millennia only to find you haven’t a chance in hell sustaining the lifestyle because you’re as poor as a church mouse. If there isn’t a convenient ‘fire’ to justify an insurance payout, it seems there always comes a time in the life of the landed gentry when eventually they have to turn these properties over to the National Trust probably in settlement of death duties or because of the expense involved in maintaining these historical buildings.

Hand it over to the National Trust

Just imagine having to find the cash to fix leaky cast iron guttering or rebuild an original plaster cornice, not to mention the headache in respect of planning regulations as in this type of edifice even the toilets are Grade I listed. It’s bad enough scraping together enough pennies to buy timber for shelving.

Still, it's always interesting to see how the other half lived and these beautiful historical buildings deserve to be preserved for posterity. 

Scotney Castle gets our thumbs up as they've created a shrine to their cats!

Moggy Mansion