Boksel Media Box

Materials: Boksel sofa table, USB-powered situation fans, electric drill and huge bits, furniture stain, screws and bolts, furnishings feet

Description: For a long time I’ve needed to replace my old IKEA media center cabinet. Several occasions I’ve lingered in the Besta area but just could not imagine a remedy that I liked. Last weekend we located the Boksel sofa table in the as-is section, which met practically all of my desires, but essential a few adjustments.

Apologies that there are no step-by-step pictures. The adjustments are reasonably minor but crucial because Boksel isn’t media furnishings. Soon after disassembling the cabinet, it took me about three afternoons do all the work. Hopefully these “right after” photographs demonstrate it nicely. Here’s the full list of modifications:

1. Drilled new holes for the shelf pegs so the glass shelves could be lowered. My AV receiver demands seven inches of area (six in. + airflow), the present shelves had been only about five.five-six in.

2. Drilled a 4 inch hole, centered at the intersection of the middle upright and the newly lowered shelves, to run AV cords out the back. The back wall of Boksel is 1/2 in. thick wood, not cardboard or wood ply like most media center units so I had to purchase a 4 in. circular saw bit for my drill.

A note about drilling: I discover that drilling all the way through IKEA furniture causes the veneer on the exit side to crack and pieces splinter off. To stay away from this with the large saw bits I drilled the pilot hole 1st, drilled partially from one side and then completed the drill from the other side. These holes came out quite clean.

3. Drilled two 3 inch holes (yet again requiring a significant saw bit) for ventilation at best-center of the upper shelves. I’ve had issues with electronics overheating in enclosed media furnishings so I preserve USB-powered pc case fans running above my receiver and Xbox.

4. Stained the inside of the large drilled holes with black furnishings stain (Minwax Express Color black) so the lighter color of the exposed MDF would not stand out against the black-brown veneer.

five. Drilled mounting holes for the case fans. My brain must have been someplace else when I marked the places for the holes due to the fact on the first try out the fans didn’t fit and I had to drill some new holes. It’s not this kind of a big deal since the situation fans are in the back and the errors aren’t readily visible, nevertheless the imperfection still stings.

To mount the fans I put a single of the finger guards on the within of the cabinet and utilized longer screws to secure the complete assembly onto the back wall. The USB cable will run from the fans to a powered USB hub inside the cabinet.

six. Removed the present flat plastic feet, drilled out present and/or new mounting holes at the corners and center of the unit, and set up adjustable (screw kind) furnishings feet. The cabinet will be sitting across each wood flooring and carpet, so I want to be in a position to degree out the height.

7. Employed a wood “repair” pencil to fill in scratches and a bruised corner. The as-is unit we bought was in rather great shape with only a handful of obvious difficulties. The Minwax Blend-fil ebony pencil was virtually a perfect match to IKEA’s brown-black veneer.

My new media center cabinet is now assembled and waiting for installation of the electronics. I’m a little nervous about placing the hefty Tv and receiver on the glass top rated and shelves, but I assume they will be OK.

I also would have liked to have set up a cord management answer on the back, but I think some velcro ties will be enough to preserve it from currently being messy.

~ Tim Kurkoski, United States