media stand part 5: getting the top on and finished

After getting a good start on staining shelves I got side tracked on other stuff and kind of stalled out getting the rest of the stand together and stained. Winning the tools gave me even more to do while the stand sat around but it's rounding into shape now.

With the interior of the cabinet stained and together, I finished doweling the shelf in and added some brackets to the back. Just the dowels felt sturdy enough but I will admit those dado's were pretty terrible and I don't trust my joinery skills to not add more support. Especially if I can hide it.

Took some slight planing to get these flush on the backside.

Since I'm building this in two separate pieces, I think brackets might also be the best way to attach them once things are finally ready. The plan could always change though; in fact it usually does.

Grabbed a pull saw on clearance at Menards. Worth it.

This was actually backwards, I lined up all the stained edges after this.

With those on and the dowels cleaned up I could line up the top shelf. These are the cleanest looking boards of the entire piece, so I want them to look good on top. It was a pretty good fit just sitting on the top, but I wanted it a little tighter so I used the shelf brackets to hold it down. There were still sanding marks from the hand-sander I took down with finer grit paper without the power tools. Too bad I didn't win some sanding cards too. Oh well.

View from underneath. I chiseled out a spot for the bracket to sit.

At that point I was tired of squatting, so I put the shelves on the base to raise the top to a manageable height while I finished sanding and got the stain on. I needed to take some off the edges on one side of the miter as well, and even though it's a little uneven it's sanded to a square corner at least. Once the stain was on it's not very noticeable, and I think we're ready to add the poly finish at this point. 

Looking level at least.

Whew, that is bigger than what was in my head.

I'm pretty happy with where things are at right now. I don't look forward to carrying this upstairs when it's ready, but I think keeping it in two pieces and attaching the two in the living room will help a little with that. If I keep it in two pieces I mean. Everything was way taller than I was thinking when I had it all together, so I might make some changes. Waiting for coats of poly to dry will give me plenty of time to figure that out, and the drawers too.