An Armoir Home for our TV

We knew for a while that our television was heading South. When we finally got around to getting a new one, we ended up buying a nice sized Vizio flat screen LCD TV. I also knew that when we did get a new television, I wanted to build this nice entertainment type center for it for our family room. Well, I mulled over design ideas in my head and just couldn't come up with an acceptable style that I was comfortable with. So, I changed my ideas around some and came up with this armoir style cabinet and it really came out nice. Constructed mainly of 3/4" oak plywood, I designed angled sides into it instead of having it simply be a big box in our family room. Another consideration was the type of doors I would have on it. I couldn't just have two big "barn door" type doors on it because when they would be opened up for viewing tv, the one on the left side would be swung far open into the path to get out to the kitchen. That made the idea of bi-fold doors the most sensible.

I also had to keep in mind that the rooms thermostat was located on the wall just behind where the tv has always been located. With an entertainment center type of thing, I could have had it within an opening of the center. However, an armoir style piece would totally block the thermostat. So, I was limited as to how high I could make the thing stand. That wasn't that much of a deal as I did manage to design it large enough to be functional and still grant access to the thermostat on the wall. You can see it just above and behind the armoir. There is closet space down below the tv compartment and also a shelf in the upper section for the sattalite box and DVD player. One other thing I incorporated into the design was embedded magnets in the doors that act as catches to keep the doors closed when not in use. Some custom shop-made walnut dentil moulding circles the front and sides of the cabinet to set things off.