Minimalist TV stand

I had actually made this TV stand three years ago, in 2018, but I got some decent pictures of it that I wanted to share, so I figured - why not post this here?

For far longer than I care to admit, my TV stand was a plywood board over a cardboard box. I kind of wanted to get away from the frat house boutique look, and I didn’t feel like putting any money in particle board or generic wood products, so I decided to make my own.

My goals in making this were:

1. minimalist and light-feeling look;

2. storage for the TV and DVD player remotes;

3. unobtrusive place to put a DVD player and (much later) a gaming console of some kind; and

4. tall enough that I could fit the subwoofer from my speaker system underneath.

Of course, aside from a cordless drill, I didn’t have power tools to speak of, so this was made entirely by hand.

Drawer detail

Drawer handle detail

…fingerprints and all!

Drawer for remotes

Sadly, PS4 controllers don’t fit here. :(

Detail of end dovetails

Oh look, is that something else I’ve made in the background? ;)

Without the TV

It looks nice and clean here!

The build process was pretty straightforward. The VG fir that I used was mostly cooperative, but if you’ve ever tried to plane it you’ll know that if you even think about trying to plane against the grain the fibres will want to peel off in a hurry, so when flattening and surfacing the top (which was a glue-up of two boards) I had to keep my irons super sharp and go super slowly. Other than that, there were no complications: the glue-up was pretty stress-free, and finishing it was a breeze. I actually forget now what kind of finish I used but I’m pretty sure it was just a wipe-on polyurethane varnish, topped and buffed with beeswax.

So, I was basically successful. It certainly has the look I was going for, and it mostly has all the spaces for all the stuff I was going to put in it. If you’ve looked carefully though, you might have noticed a distinct lack of cord management. This was a bit of an oversight on my part, and is one reason I currently don’t have my speakers attached: the forest of cables sprouting from the back of the unit isn’t the most attractive thing in the world. One other goof: I eventually ended up getting a PS4 and it fits perfectly in one of the side cubbies, which is great since I’d gotten the dimensions of the unit and designed it to fit. What I didn’t count on, though, is that the PS4 controllers are rather chubby! So no, they don’t fit anywhere and are relegated to sitting on top next to the TV. (<loud sigh>)

Those shortcomings aside, I’m pretty happy with the outcome!