help with custom made furniture for living room

J-Will

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 10, 2009
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I am looking at having a custom built floor to ceiling (as close to the ceiling) entertainment center built for my living room. I of course want to keep this as low price as I can. However with raised ceilings and the nature of custom furniture, I realize there will be some trade off. Someone local would be preferred, only because I want the builder to some out and take measurements, and bounce design ideas off with. I have an idea, but would like someone with more experience helping me decide what will and will not work.

If any of you have bought, or have built something like this let me know some features you have or would have liked. I have a list of things I would like accomplished from this piece, however I would like to hear from people that have more experience. Also, if you don’t mind putting the price of your piece, and maybe some pictures, I would appreciate it.

Or is there some other way to accomplish this? I have looked online at some furniture stores, and I cannot find anything already made that has the measurements I am looking for. I also have crown molding in the living room, and I want something that will blend in with that

I can snap pics, and take rough estimates, but like I said, having a person come by the house (at some point before the build phase) is required.

To get an idea of what I am talking about, HERE is a link at a piece I like, however it is not tall enough and I am not too sure if I like the 'feet' at the bottom of the main center section.

I live in the Northern VA area, so any help on people or places I should look in to around here would be helpful.
 
What you're looking to do is typically referred to as a "built-in entertainment center". Searching google for those terms will probably help you find some designs you like. You can also pick up some books on Built-ins at Home Depot or Lowes. Or, browse the selection at Amazon. Another fairly decent resource is AVSforum.com. I think it's the "custom home theater" sub-forum or something similar. Finally, here's a guy who is local to me that has some nice designs: http://www.uniquewoodworking.com/wallunitBuiltin.html. That might give you some ideas.

Built-ins can get very expensive, very quickly. I spent about 3k on mine and did that majority of the work myself. I cut costs by using a lot of drywall in the design rather than wood. You can also go through one of the "Closet" places fairly cheaply. I found this place by searching Google for "Custom closets VA". The closet places typically use lower quality materials and I believe try to "build" your system using somewhat standard components instead of custom sizing everything. For a truly custom built-in expect to pay a lot of money. Here's a guy who does custom work with some samples of his pricing: http://www.stevecaseydesign.com/for_sale.htm
 
Thanks for the info and links, this is what I was hoping to get. A built in entertainment center is exactly what I'm going for.

I do not necessarily need it completely custom, I just have a certain space I want it to fill, and I am unable to find a unit already built with those dimensions.

I wish I had the tools and the wood working experience to tackle something like this on my own, however I do not. Thats why I was trying to put feelers out there for anyone in my area that could help.
 
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