Teak and Aluminum Audio/Video Console

Here are some current photos of a console-style audio/video rack I finished building in January 2006 (!). I'm pretty sure this was the first real piece of furniture I built, and it remains one of my wife's favorites.

At time, we wanted an attractive rack that would function as a stand for a 42-50" widescreen TV we were hoping to buy and as a rack to hold a few components.

Cost was a primary concern. Lowboy/console-style A/V racks were surprisingly expensive. Even simple metal-and-glass stands start around $300, and all of the nice-looking wood A/V racks (the ones that looked more like furniture, and less like industrial equipment) we saw  cost well over $1000. We wanted to keep the cost of my DIY rack in the $200-300 range, and I met that goal; my final cost was just under $200. (Again, this is in 2006 dollars.)

The overall dimensions are 60" wide x 20" deep x 21-1/4" high. Each fixed shelf is 18 3/4" wide, with 7" usable vertical space. The center cavity is 20" wide, and can hold an adjustable-height center shelf (not shown here). It's made of MDF with teak veneer, finished with three coats of Watco Teak Oil plus two applications of paste wax.  Satin black enamel paint covers the visible un-veneered surfaces. The metal parts are aluminum angle and tubing.

The T-braces were a later addition. I added them when we bought our last CRT TV, a Sony that weighed about 200 pounds.

The last gallery photo shows the console in use. These days, the room it's in is our yoga room, so it's an audio/video/yoga-prop console.

Here are a few more current photos.

For fun, here's what it looked like filled with equipment back in the day (taken with an HP PhotoSmart 215  digital camera with maximum resolution of 1280 x 960 pixels). The integrated amp, tuner, and turntable (with a new plinth) are still working.

If you're interested in more details, see the corresponding blog series.

Thanks for looking!