TURNING A MCM DRESSER INTO A TV CONSOLE / ENTERTAINMENT CENTER

I am sure Marc had other things he wanted to do ALL DAY Sunday, but because he totally ROCKS MY WORLD...he build 2 new slide out, tilt down drawers, complete with new sturdy boxes for my customer, instead.

First, lets show ya the before picture...Hmmm

It all started with a vision I already had for this piece and was playing around with on my own.  Then one of my customers caught on to what I was going to do and jumped on board.  Knowing she was going to be our "guiney pig" project of sorts, she was cool with whatever we whipped up.  Thanks Jessica!

What we (Marc) whipped up was a pretty sweet situation!  First we removed the front face of the door with a sawzaw.  Not the most professional way but after building and renovating houses, this guy can cut a straight line with this thing like nobodies business! 

We wanted sturdier boxes for the tv components, so he built new ones.  I am not really sure how as I went Christmas shopping:)  But I am sure it had something to do with some wood, table saw, router and a nail gun.

Instead of one the original middle rail, as you can see from the bottom middle drawer, we opted to do two glides to support the heavier box.

Really, the hinges are the trickiest part of all.  You have only about an 1/8" on all sides to make sure it sits in there perfectly.  

He decided to use the back of the glides, that we did not need as temporary brackets after we measured where the drawer front should sit, which we did by removing the back off the unit, with the box set in place in the dresser, I was in front holding the door front perfectly where I wanted it up against the box while he made pencil lines from the back.

After we liked where the drawer front were sitting with the temporary brackets, he was able to attach the hinges.  You don't want to have to move hinges 5 times to get them perfect, so this is a great way to do it.

TIP-- as you can see I didn't finish the inside of the drawer front till AFTER everything was set perfectly, BIG MISTAKE!  Once you have it perfect you really don't want to remove those hinges again.  It took about an hour to get everything lined back up perfectly and had to basically repeat the whole process over again.  So finish the drawer, front, back and box (which I clear coated) BEFORE you get it all installed.

It turned out beautiful and we learned a LOT on this project of what to do and what NOT to do next time around.