Built-In Entertainment Center

My first foray into building cabinets. Our basement had a 14ft section along the back wall that is two feet deeper than the rest of the wall, which felt like the perfect opportunity for a built in.

Our house was built ~70 years ago, and because of this, the floor joists of the main floor have sagged significantly. Over the 14ft span of that wall section, there is a total loss of 1.5 inches, with a significant 'belly' in the center of that. To fix this would require far more time, skill, and money than I cared to shell out. The solution was to build everything sized to the smallest dimension, and use trim to cover the sins. There were a lot of sins. The 'Finished Product" photo highlights the wavy-ness of the crown molding. In person it's far less noticeable, but it still bothers me.

To add some depth, we built the bottom cabinets the full depth of the recess, and then set the bookcases back 8 inches. We wanted the bookcases to be more shallow (I don't own any books that are 16 inches deep), but some interesting plumbing in the floor above prevented that.

For the counter-top, I went with 1x6 'select' pine boards that we joined together with dowels. This did not go well. A biscuit joiner and a planer would have resulted in a finish that required far less sanding. It would have been better to go with a harder wood as well (such as poplar), but I wanted to save a bit of money. Also, my wife and I aren't planning on abusing the counter-top to any degree.

I don't have any pictures of the fully finished product at the moment, but will try to upload them if I remember.