Just don't stand on the stand

Okay, so tv’s up and we’ve had a steady stream of guests recently. Let’s put something together so the tivo’s not just sitting on a step ladder, even if it’s not completely set up yet. 

Without baseboards up (I know, I know, I should be finding those vs doing this) the couch is off the wall a bit so the space calls for something relatively shallow under the tv. The outlet isn’t too far off the floor, so we’re looking at something maybe 20 inches high. The plan was to pick up a six foot strip of straight 1x12 and make a simple open box on some legs and call it a day. The plan, of course, went out the window.

Everything cut, with 5 1.5 inch sections of 2x4 for legs

The 6-foot lengths were absolute garbage when I stopped at HD over the weekend, but there was an 8-foot board that looked pretty good. So instead of cutting a 6-footer in half, I ended up with 3 30-inch sections, with that extra 6 inches cut into 3-inch sides for a top shelf, and cutting some scrap into 5 inch sections for a bottom shelf. A little more work, and a middle shelf meant picking up some T brackets in addition to the L brackets I just had around but I think it’s a good case of adapting to what’s available vs. sticking to a plan that wouldn’t work.In any case, there's definitely room for a gaming system now...

That is horrible looking from the back, but that's why it's the back.

I was also trying to find some hairpin legs for a decent price but the wife put the kibosh on that, so this project just got that much cheaper. Tons of scrap I could cut legs out of, wife gives it a thumbs up. Win-win.

Test fit without any glue or screws, this looked surprisingly ok.

I think the sander is going to be up for a serious workout in any upcoming spare time I find. I’ve actually learned a few lessons from past projects and didn’t just start putting things together, I tried to see how square everything would be and if there was an obvious way things should fit together. It helped a little but some of these corners were still quite a bit off. Since the kids are going to be around this it’s going to need quite a bit of sanding though so things should look pretty good by the time it’s ready to stain.

The brackets went on last, before that the top was just glued on, hence the weights.

But who knows when that will actually happen. In any event it’s a nice test run at building one for upstairs to replace our old stand. Hopefully comcast (gah, just threw up in my mouth a bit) will manage not to break it when they’re by later this week to activate the basement outlet. My hopes are not high.

Purchase list: 

1 1”x12”x8’ common board
1 4-pack L brackets
1 2-pack T brackets