Designing an Entertainment Center

TB · Mar 17, 2006

As the title says, I'm setting up plans in AutoCAD for a new Entertainment Center and would like some input.

Keep in mind that I've only spent about an hour in CAD working on it so far, so it is far from how I'd like it to look.

The thought is to make it look like a large (10' wide X 8' tall) piece of furniture without actually being that big. The base will more than likely have glass doors with wood frames. I am under discussion with my wife about a fireplace in the center or not. If she wins, the 2 center doors will come off to make room for it. The rest regardless of the fireplace will house the receiver, DVD player, PS2, etc.

The shelves above will "float" in that there appears to be no support for them. They will only hold pictures, movies, the usual.

The top will be fastened to the ceiling. It will be made of a sheet of Plywood (I haven't decided what kind of wood yet, but will more than likely be oak) and crown molding.

That should do for a first post. Like it? Hate it? Let me know that you think.

👍

Pebb · Mar 17, 2006

Not a bad layout, it has an old look theme to it. Or maybe thats the cad lol.

Jondot · Mar 27, 2006

I'm not sure i like the shelf above the TV. Looks odd somehow...
I like the idea of the floor to ceiling cabinet, but i'd change the shape at the top - it doesn't really fit in with the style of what's going inside it. However, if you want it to blend in with the rest of your furniture (and it does), then that's fine.

Otherwise, i like it (seeing past the CAD package's nasty wood effect

)

.

Just out of interest, what are you using to design it?

TB · Mar 27, 2006

Agreed, the wood render pattern in AutoCAD sucks. If I get around to it (we've been crazy busy at work lately) I'll probably set up my own pattern. Either that or see if I can tweak this one.

As far as the shelf over the TV, it'll hold pictures of the kids, movies they shouldn't get their hands on yet

, etc.

There are a few things I am planning on changing as soon as I have a chance - set up a crude representation of a fireplace (I have pdf specs on one), put in glass doors in the remaining 4 cabinet doors. In general, just clean things up a bit. BTW, the big gray thing is our couch. "L" shaped, 10' long by 7'4". Big sucker.

Everything you see is an extruded polyline, set up in AutoCAD 2006. When I get more into specifics, I'll extrude the plywood to 3/4", face frames for the doors will be 2"x3/4", etc. This is just the extremely rough draft to work some kinks out.

Thanks for the interest, guys.

wfooshee · Mar 28, 2006

Please don't take this wrong, I'm not on a vendetta to crush designers, :sly:

but please put some more thought into actually using this, rather than just looking at it.

Are you talking about a real wood-burning fire? Don't put a fireplace anywhere near this. Bad idea, in my opinion.

First off, a blazing, or even smoldering fire, will put out light that competes with and distracts from the TV viewing. Even if you plan to not use them at the same time, what do you do when you discover the TV event coming on that you've been waiting weeks to see, just after you've lit a fire? Then there's the heat from the fire. It doesn't all go up the chimney, the cabinet and whatever equipment, goodies, and whatnot that is there will have to tolerate it, and probably can't. Even if it's a gas fire, there's heat. If it's a fake fire, what's the point?

Secondly, where does the chimney go? If you recess the fireplace into the wall, then you have a hole in your cabinet. If you leave the fireplace flush with the cabinet, you have to have some kind of hood to carry smoke back into the wall for a chimney, and that will radiate a gi-normous amount of heat, which your plasma or LCD flat-screen will absolutely hate.

Fireplace aside, are you burying amps, DVD player, components, etc in the cabinet or setting them on the shelf? If in the cabinet, you can't use the remotes unless you do use glass doors, which spoils your "hiding" effect., if that's what you're looking for. Then there's cabling. Where does it go?

Last thing that comes to my mind is the shelves. If they're just for nick-nacks, great. If you're gonna put DVDs and music on them (and you will - - you know you will), they're gonna slide off. Loose bookends won't hold them, you need ends to the shelves.

Basically it's a battle between usefulness and appearance. I tend to run towards usefulness. Why spend money building something and discovering you hate it as you actually try to make use of it?

TB · Mar 29, 2006

Very nice points, wfooshee. Keep 'em coming.

I hope this puts you mind to rest a bit. The fireplace I am planning, although I haven't actually looked at any yet, is an electric. No venting, no ash and no gas lines to run. Just an outlet, and there is already one where it will/may be going. I did a search and came across this one. The pdf shows it mounted in a cabinet similar to what I designing, so it shouldn't be a problem. I am also planning on having some form of separation from my components, as the receiver runs warm on its own. It will also not be on all the time. It gets a might bit cold here and the TV is in the basement, so it'll be nice to just flip a switch for a hit of heat when needed. *120 volt fireplace puts out 4800 BTU's* I hope that cleared things up a bit.

Glass doors are for sure going in, not wood. As I said, the design shown is preliminary, not final.

Cables will run in a "channel" between the back of the entertainment center and the wall.

Excellent point on the shelves, though. I'll have to give that some thought, as ends will look funny when there is a vase (or my wife's glass purse collection) on the shelf.

I hope to get some more time to work on it soon. Between work being BUSY and having a 2 year old and a 3 month old at home, I havn't had as much time as I'd like. Good thing I've got plenty of time.

wfooshee · Mar 29, 2006

That's a pretty neat thing, the electric fireplace. Still, lots of heat around your expensive toys, this isn't just a space heater. Me, I'd find a space on a side wall for it, if the room allows. And what I said about its light still stands, distracting from viewing.

My own living room has a fireplace in the front right corner, "front" being the wall with the TV and stuff. It's in the way, space-wise, cramping the space I could use for cabinet or speaker stands. It's well away from the equipment stack, though, which I put at the opposite end of the wall. I have a large entertainment center, one of those with the glass cabinet on one side, solid doors on the other (racks for movies, CDs, etc.) with a bridge between the cabinets for shelf space over the TV space.

Jondot · Mar 29, 2006

wfooshee
That's a pretty neat thing, the electric fireplace. Still, lots of heat around your expensive toys, this isn't just a space heater. Me, I'd find a space on a side wall for it, if the room allows.

I have to agree. It may look nice, but TVs don't need anymore heat than they already get. I would have thought that heating up the wood above it would be a fire hazzard too, but i dunno. Maybe you could protect it somehow.

wfooshee · Mar 29, 2006

Something that just occured to me, analogy-wise. Would you put a kitchen range in your entertainment center? No? Then why a fireplace?

OK, it's not quite the same BTU-wise, but it's not so far off, either.

ExigeEvan · Mar 29, 2006

I'll have to agree.

A fire below a flat screen TV is just asking for trouble.

If there was wood above the fireplce (wood is a good insulator) it might not be so bad, but still not great.

And those side shelves would be great for the front 2 speakers in a 5.1 system

TB · Mar 30, 2006

What's wrong with this???

Now I don't have to go upstairs for the pizza.

Alright, I get it.

I'll see what I can do to talk the wife out of the idea. To be honest, I was never sold on it anyway.

And ExigeExcel, I have a 6.1 system.

Of course with the kids around, I only have 3.0 connected. :indiff:

So be it. One of the things I got to today was set a crude representation of the left, right and center channels. I'll more than likely just finish off the whole damn room while I'm at it.

Kylehnat · Mar 30, 2006

TB
Now I don't have to go upstairs for the pizza.

Spoken like a true man.

TB · Apr 3, 2006

kylehnat
Spoken like a true man.

I hope that was intended to be a compliment, because that is how I'm taking it. :sly:

Edit: I found this site last week. Hopefully some of the textures will work better than CAD's standard ones for the renders.

Kylehnat · Apr 4, 2006

TB
I hope that was intended to be a compliment, because that is how I'm taking it.

Absolutely! One of the things I hate about my apartment is that I can't see my TV from the kitchen. If the oven and refrigerator were within arm's reach, I'd probably never get off the couch

TB · Apr 10, 2008

Holy crap! It's been over 2 years already? Wow.

Anywho, down to business. We are finally starting to get the ball rolling on this. A few major changes - we need a spot for my sons medical equipment and a small fridge for his medication and we're no longer planning on doing just the one wall. We're doing the adjoining wall as well.

Yes, the fireplace stays, but it has moved away from the TV, which should make some of you happy.

It has also been changed from electric to gas, making what was essentially the heat output of a hairdryer to that of 6 hairdryers.

The plans are in to a cabinet shop and I'm anxiously awaiting the initial design and anxiously dreading the price tag associated with said design.

UnoMOTO · Apr 10, 2008

I hope that room is big because you are sucking up plenty of square footage with all that cabinetry.

TB · Apr 10, 2008

It shouldn't close the room in too much.

And while I was home for lunch, my wife found the stone we want to use, although I'm not sure which color to go with. I'll leave that to her. :lol:

UnoMOTO · Apr 10, 2008

I didn't have much choice with my stone. It was free and the only color I could get. That made things really easy for me.

My rocks...

TopHat · Apr 10, 2008

Looks pretty nice so far. 👍 Hope all goes smoothly.

TB · Jul 4, 2008

Update time again!

Last weekend I got most of the room painted. We went from these two:

To this:

A better view:

And finished product, minus tape removal and minor touch-ups:

We went in last week to look at a new couch, got some information on it and brought the color sample we liked home. It's the 7300 Movables Series made by England Furniture (pdf here). The salesman called us and said that there was a sale tomorrow, but we could stop in today and get the same discount, so I fired up AutoCad (thank you VPN for letting me do that) and laid a few things out. The first one I did was the typical sectional:

We weren't too keen on it, probably because the couch that we are replacing is a sectional.

Next up was the loveseat/couch pair with the "Command Center" console between the loveseat's, er, seats:

We liked this one more, but I typically go for the strange, but not overly so, so the everyone's-got-one couch/loveseat just didn't feel quite right. We also later realized that we couldn't do the recliners with the Command Center because apparently they'd hit. Dodged a bullet there. Go and order a custom set of furniture only to get it home, lay it out and then find out that there's no clearance. :scared:

Then I had an epiphany. I told my wife to give me a few minutes 'cause I had an idea:

After a few seconds of looking at it, she declared "I like it. Let's wake the kids up and go order it." *game, set, and match - TB*

It still seats 5 (three recline, 2 don't), just like the loveseat and couch, has 8 drink holders (a bit overkill, but meh) and it's completely different than anything I seen in friends/families houses, thus making it perfect. I printed it out, brought it in, paid the down payment and am waiting the 6-8 weeks for it to show up.

I'm now waiting to hear back from the framer and fireplace installer as to when they can get started and then we'll line up the stone(r) man. Once all of that gets done, back to the cabinet people with official dimensions and finalized layouts.

We're getting closer, people!

wfooshee · Jul 4, 2008

It seats 5, OK, but only 2 are at the correct viewing angle, assuming you want to watch TV wth a bunch of folks, 3 can get along, but those last 2 seats are useless for the entertainment system. That'll happen no matter what you do, if you have seating on the side of the room, Also, what's wrong with sofa-type seating, so you can snuggle up once in a while? Or just stretch across it? To me, for usefulness as opposed to style, what you had in post #20 is way better. I would even turn it around so that 3 seats face the TV (putting it all the way against the wall unit), 2 on the side, with a bigger gap to the next room's space, if you can give up the cabinet space that would block.

Alternatively, hang the TV in the corner (but I hate those!!) so it faces more of the seats, and can also be seen from the adjascent space.

TB · Jul 4, 2008

Thanks again for the comments, wfooshee.

We didn't base the purchase solely on trying-to-be-different as I may have implied. To give you the full picture, you need to know a little background about my family. Don't worry. This won't take long. I work Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm (7am-5pm Monday-Thursday and 7am-11am Friday during the summer). My wife works Friday-Sunday 7pm-7am and usually picks up Thursday 7pm-11pm. With complete opposite schedules, we don't have people over very often and when we do, we aren't centered around the TV. With the kids currently being 2 and 4, as long as there is a picture and sound, they don't care how it looks or sounds, and neither does my wife, so ultimately, I only need one "money seat" and I have it.

As for the adjacent space and seeing the TV from there, this is what is currently there and that's not likely to change for a while. The toys themselves obviously will, but the function of that half of the room will remain.

TB · Aug 20, 2008

Update: The fireplace is in, gas line, electrical and venting are all run and it should be framed in either tomorrow or Friday!

Also, a few weeks ago we went in and talked to the cabinet designer to get a few things ironed out. She changed the plans, but apparently didn't bother to listen to me. The cabinets on both sides of the fireplace should be exactly the same. Hers are off by 10½" because she didn't move the fireplace over to account for the cabinets going in for the TV. Ultimately that's pretty minor as all she needs to do is change the model numbers to reflect a different width of cabinet. Regardless, I was a bit peeved. Then there is the price. My wife and I have been spot on with all of our guesses as to what each thing (fireplace install, framing & stone) will run and we did the same thing with the cabinets. Problem is, the price we received was triple what we were expecting, and that didn't include installation and there's nothing remotely special about the cabinets. They're just stock, straight out of the catalog cabinets. No DVD storage. No slideouts, hell, not even a single drawer! Needless to say, we're looking elsewhere for cabinets now.

nick09 · Aug 20, 2008

Good luck on getting cheaper cabinets.

Pako · Aug 20, 2008

It's cool seeing a long term project like this materialize. I concur, good luck on finding cabinets that will meet your expectations in functionality and price. They're out there, you'll find some!

Looking good.

:cheers:

bergauk · Aug 20, 2008

Clever idea with the couches, I've always loved recliners and giant wrap around couches.

8 cup holders is a BIT overkill. But its really cool too. Nice job, I can't wait to see it done.

Edit:whoaaa. where'd all th posts go?

TB · Sep 23, 2008

Stone guy is finally available so the stone is being installed as I type. Once that is done, I can get official measurements for the cabinets.

Pic of the stone:

Pics to follow.

bevo · Sep 23, 2008

TB
Update: . My wife and I have been spot on with all of our guesses as to what each thing (fireplace install, framing & stone) will run and we did the same thing with the cabinets. Problem is, the price we received was triple what we were expecting, and that didn't include installation and there's nothing remotely special about the cabinets. They're just stock, straight out of the catalog cabinets. No DVD storage. No slideouts, hell, not even a single drawer! Needless to say, we're looking elsewhere for cabinets now.

I see that you have not put where your from on your profile. I live in ohio and recently had my kitchen remodeled. We priced cabinets at all the major cabinet places around, and found that custom hand built cabinets were thousands of dollars cheaper, and a higher quality. We even got all of our cabinets installed for 150$. All in all, we saved about 4500$ including the installation. Now, when I tell you who did it, you might think I'm crazy, or you might not even know what I'm talking about. The Amish. If your in an area where there are Amish cabinet builders go and check them out. They will hand build whatever you can possibly think of, and it will probably look better and last longer than anything you can find in a store.

I bet this is the first time the Amish has ever been mentioned on this site. And I doubt that they will ever know it.

TB · Sep 24, 2008

I've definitely heard good things about Amish furniture from many people, but unfortunately I'm not aware of any places close to me in ND that I can custom order from. The search continues! :lol:

Preliminary before and after pictures as I can't get in a good spot due to scaffolding and furniture being in the way:

These pictures in no way do the actual stone justice. It looks absolutely outstanding. I'll take better pictures after it's finished and the room is put back in order.

Kryz11 · Sep 24, 2008

That looks great man, is that chimney electric, gas or wood?

Designing an Entertainment Center

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