Entertainment Center

Posted on January 6, 2009 by Brian Hill — No Comments ↓

This was fun to build. This is perfect for your man cave to display your sports memorabilia. (or ladies: knick knacks) It looks complicated, but if you have average woodworking skills you could easily do this. All of the components are hidden behind the tinted glass (on right) that opens easily with a light push.

The entertainment center is made out of MDF board. It comes in a 4’x8′ sheet. Just get a straight edge and rip down how wide you want it to be. (I think this was 18″ deep). The back of the entertainment center is the sheetrocked wall. A 1″x2″ cleat was put on the inside of the left upright to keep it from moving. The shelf above the TV is fixed to help hold it together. The front has a 1″x6″ holding the top in line, than a crown mold on top of it. The bottom has 1″x4″s going horizontal to hold the bottom and for the doors to screw to. The verticals has 1″x2″s just so you don’t see the mdf edge.

The front of the shelves has a rounded edge. Holes every 2″ were added to adjust the shelves. (This was the worst part. I recommend buying the metal adjustable style). The speaker wires were fed behind the sheetrock wall. The cables and wires for the TV go down and are hidden in the storage below.

The base trim wraps around the unit. The trim under the TV is a 1″ flat trim (like a chair rail). The doors can be purchased at Home Depot in the kitchen department. The doors come with Euro hidden hinges. They come in white, but they are paintable. Caulk up all of the seams, paint the mdf with an oil base Kilz. Then paint the entertainment center the color of your choice. Here we added accent lights on a dimmer to show off the displayed items.

Tagged with: cable, chair rail, components, entertainment center, euro hidden hinges, flat screen, football, home depot, kilz, kitchen, man cave, mdf, skills, speaker, sports memorbilia, trim, wire, wood working
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Enjoy Your Backyard

Posted on January 5, 2009 by Brian Hill — No Comments ↓

This is my favorite landscape job that we did this past summer. When we started, there was the concrete slab with the hot tub, the fire pit, and several huge (ugly) evergreens around the fire pit/slab area.

The pink flowers above are dwarf crape myrtles. I just discovered and started using these flowers this year. They have a very pretty flower. The bottom right yellow leaf is a golden privet.

This is the fire pit that was converted to a flower bed. I wasn’t really thrilled about leaving the pit, but I went back latter in the summer to do some other work for the customer, and I found that the “trailers” that I planted were water falling over the edges and sweet potato vine was crawling out onto the patio. I should have gotten a picture of that. It was awesome.

To the left is the “fall” corner of the display. In the fall, the fountain grass would turn bronze, the spireas turn red, yellow, and orange. The berry magic hollies are evergreens that produce red berries for the birds. The green and white leafed (upper middle) is a variegated dogwood. The branches turn red for fall and winter color. The barberry stays the burgundy color into the early winter.

The green leafed plant is a Texas flowering quince. In the spring, the stems has little red flowers. Around it is many perennials. White: shasta daisy. Dark pink: phlox. Middle right little white flowers: whirling butterfly.

The curbing going around the patio pavers is a concrete curbing. This one is buff colored. It’s very nice because it has a high back to hold in your mulch in the landscape and the grass grows up to the low front. It looks sharp when the grass is grown in around it.

Knock out roses are added throughout the landscape. Mocha brown mulch was used. The stepping stones are man-made, but you can not tell it.

The patio pavers that were used are a venetian stone.

Here are two green tower boxwoods on each side of the stepping stones.

The little grass with purple flowers are liropes.

Tagged with: backyard, barberry, boxwood, crape myrtle, curb, evergreen, grass, holly, knock out roses, landscape, mulch, patio paver, phlox, quince, spirea
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Master bedroom

Posted on January 4, 2009 by Brian Hill — No Comments ↓

Just some pictures from our last house. This was our master bedroom. The wall color was gunmetal (shade of grey), with white trim, and olive carpet. The bottom step was hinged to hide valuables.

This house was a 1880’s victorian farm house, so we added some of that theme throughout the house.

This door opens to a small walk in closet.

The door opens to a 3’x3′ metal balcony that overlooked our 5 acres.

The bathroom was tiny and yes, the toilet is inset in the wall.

On the left in the bathroom was the shower. A skylight was installed so you could stand up in the shower, and wave at the planes as they went over. (Just kidding)

Thanks for looking.

Tagged with: 1880, 5 acres, balcony, bathroom, farm, grey, home, house, olive, shower, skylight, stairs, steps, victorian, walk in closet
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