Minimalistic Floating TV Unit

Materials: Besta bench (x2), furniture board, black MDF board, white speaker cloth, hinges and magnetic locks, various types of screws etc.

Description: I was looking for the perfect TV unit and as usual, couldn't find what I was looking for. So I decided to hack it from Ikea parts.

These were the requirements:
- Hangs from the wall
- Covers all electrical outlets and the cable duct
- Should invisibly contain all electronics except for the TV
- Should allow for the remote signal and speaker system audio to travel through

Note: I have a PVC pipe (50mm) built into the wall to duct cables from the cabinet to the back of the TV.

I started out beginning of June 2010 and have the cabinet mounted since, but only now finished the doors to satisfaction. I'm very pleased with what I came up with and hope you like it too.

Still to do: LED lighting below

How to:
1) Trim the back of the middle vertical board of both cabinets, to leave 18mm to the back of the (not yet) assembled cabinet

2) Do the same to both vertical sides of one cabinet

3) Assemble the cabinets, use one of the trimmed vertical sides on each cabinet, do not use the backboards

4) For reinforcement, put some back slats in flat, 18mm from the back, with a lot of screws (top and bottom are made of honeycomb cardboard only)

5) Put both cabinets together with some screws, cut vertical sides should meet

6) Cut a piece of 18mm white furniture panel to replace the original backboard, it should fit nicely inside the back of the combined cabinets

7) Cut out holes for electrical sockets, cable duct to TV etc.

8) Mount backboard in back of cabinet with a lot of screws to the trimmed vertical boards and the horizontal slats (the backboard will mount the cabinet to the wall, make it strong)

9) Mount the cabinet to the wall using the new backboard (how you do this depends on your wall)

10) From black MDF (black won't shine through the with speaker cloth, I tried with regular MDF at first, didn't look good), make four door frames with rounded edges, with two holes in them (frame width is 30mm in my version), mount with hinges at the bottom and a magnet lock at the top

11) Remove door frames again and cover with speaker cloth (I used Bison TIX glue)

12) Mount doors again, Presto!

~ FoxVictor, Sint-Truiden, Belgium