Hacked Long, Custom & Stylish Entertainment Center

There are many people who say that home theater furniture looks the same. Even if we don't think so, it's a good reason to modify and hack it in order to come up with new and unique configurations. The other advantage of hacking is that you end up with a custom solution from stuff that isn't custom at all. The only limit is your budget and your ingenuity.

Mary from Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and her husband were trying to find the perfect entertainment center for their home. They decided to use a long wall in their house, but they wanted to keep things low, like a custom credenza because there were some windows on that wall. They weren't able to find one long enough in stores. Instead of going completely custom, they decided to combine two IKEA Besta shelves with a Billy bookcase to come up with their own made to order entertainment center.

The two Besta shelves are located on each side of the entertainment center. They are combined by using some Billy bookcase shelves as a middle joiner. The whole thing was made to look like a complete credenza thanks to some leftover wood from their flooring. This allowed them to make a sort of table top for the entertainment center, making it seamless.

On top of having enough space for all of their home entertainment equipment, it also has a lot of storage space. Since it's quite long, they can stash quite a few things before it starts to look cluttered. Their only regret is when they sell the house, they'll probably have to include the entertainment center since it will be too long for usual living rooms.

However, this gives you the ability to customize the length of a hacked entertainment center, thanks to extra shelving. We like how the extra pieces of wood make this into a cohesive unit. This doesn't need to be expensive, if you're ready to put in a bit of elbow grease. You can purchase large enough pieces at any lumber yard. Their prices will be cheaper than hardware stores. If you buy out of season, you'll save considerably more. Once you've got your piece of wood, you'll need to sand it down to prep it for a nice, deep stain. The staining process might require a few different coats and time in between. Once it's stained, you can varnish it, polish it, and mount it. The process is similar to refinishing floor, albeit on a much smaller scale. Different stains will give different results.

A few nice LED lights would give this stylish credenza a nice ambient glow. IKEA's Dioder is a cheap and easy option. Dioders give good lighting, and they aren't hard to mount. If you need something with doors, then you can put some on. If you're planning on doing this, you could decorate the doors in some fashion. One of our favorites is the faux-upholstered IKEA Besta.