AV Unit

Some of us hate New Year's Eve & prefer to spend it at home. There's always the question of entertainment though & how to spend the evening. I mean, do you cook a nice meal, watch a movie, invite friends over? The choices are almost endless.

This year I opted for the option of assembling a new 'AV Unit' (which seems to be the industry term for something that you stand your TV on). Considering the amount of money this cost, I was a bit annoyed that I had to build it myself, but I guess that's just the way that the world works these days. Unless you want to spend a couple of month's pay on something, furniture comes in boxes.

Here's the set up before I started. My TV was on top of two record cubes, with the xbox in the middle. It did the job, although (as you can see) it looked slightly untidy. So I wanted something new to make the room seem less of a mess.

The first task was to empty the box, then try to assemble the bits into some kind of order:

The second task was to then assemble the screws and bolts in order to then check that the right number of bits were present. I'm organised like that, you see.

I then just got on with following the instructions and putting the the thing together. As you can see, the instructions estimated a 1-2 hour build time:

There was one major error I made - I managed to put the shelf in the wrong way up, which meant that I then could not put the doors on. So after getting to a point where it was 80% complete, I then had to take it to pieces again. In total, with rest/boredom breaks and having to go back and do bits that I had missed because the instructions were a bit crap, I reckon it took me abut 4 hours. So only two to four times the estimated time.

Once built came the fun part - transferring the bits from their previous location on the record cubes in & on to the new unit.

The best feature though is that all the unsightly mess, including most of the cables, is now contained within the unit, giving the room a much tidier appearance overall.