Apothecary Media Console - FINISHED!

 

PRAISE THE GOOD LORD we are through with the media console!!!

 



To see our process, please see the following posts:
Apothecary Media Console - Planning
Apothecary Media Console - Part 1
Apothecary Media Console - Part 2
Apothecary Media Console - Part 3
Apothecary Media Console - Part 4
Apothecary Media Console - Part 5
Apothecary Media Console - Part 6

The final steps we had to take to complete this project were to...

 

1.  Attach the cabinet doors to to the cabinet with hinges.  Word to the wise - if you ever build anything with hinges, heads-up that hinges are made to fit 3/8 inch edges (which requires routing the edge of the cabinet door) OR a 3/4 inch thick cabinet door.  If you make a 1-inch cabinet door (like we did) you will have a heck of a time finding a hinge to fit them.  These were the only ones I could find where it didn't matter how thick the door was, and these were something like $18/pair from Rockler.  So... just heads-up on that. 




2.  Drill pilot holes in each of the facade drawer fronts and then counter-sink the screws from the back.

 

2.  Attach the pulls to the facade drawer fronts.



3.  Install the power strip.



5.  Attach the backing.



6.  Cut holes in the backing for all the cords to go through.



7.  Move the mammoth console into the living room. We did this by lifting it onto the bottom of the ottoman and rolling it into the house that way.



A note to the Ana-Whiters out there:

If you are here from Ana-White.com, let me just say that for us, this was not a 20 hour project, as many have stated.  Maybe everyone on Ana-White has mad wood-working skills, but this took us way longer than 20 hours.  I would guess maybe 50 hours?

To be fair, this was our first major wood-working project, and we did add a couple layers of complication.  For starters, we added full-extension drawer glides, instead of making the drawers just slide on the wood frame itself.  We also stained it, instead of painting.  This added significant extra work/time, b/c we had to add oak edging to all the raw surfaces of the plywood and had to be careful about screw holes and imperfections in the wood.  Finally, we added a lip around the top of the oak planks to make the top appear to be 2 inches thick.  Other than that, we pretty much followed Ana-White's guide and dimensions. 



A brief trip through memory lane:  This is what Lucy looked like when we started this project, and on the right is how she looks now.



Amazing. 



The reason we planned this project was as a solution to the baby-proofing problem.  A problem, I might add, I was in complete denial of until Lucy was 6 months old. At that point it became apparent that all the knobs and buttons in our media-playing devices would be pushed as soon as Lucy noticed them.

So here was our original plan, from Ana-White.com.



And here, the finished product (above).



I can honestly say the outrageous price of Pottery Barn's Andover Media Console ($999) doesn't seem as outrageous to me now.  It costs a lot of money and time to build a big piece of furniture!  I want to say we spent a total of about $650 for this cabinet, though honestly I sort of lost count toward the end.



Daniel and I are really thrilled with how it came out, and we are maybe even more thrilled to be finished with it.  Thank you for any encouragement (or borrowed tools... Ryan) you offered throughout this process!!  It was more helpful and appreciated than you know.