We purchased a nice solid oak entertainment center many years ago. But it’s worthless now in an age of widescreen TVs. I tried to sell it, and then later give it away, with no takers. It had been taking up way too much room in the garage for more than a year.

Before: the original entertainment center.

So rather than turn it into a pile of lumber, I decided to chop it down and make it useful again. I had to remove the trim, cut off the sides, lower the top, and put it back together. Then I added a drawer on the right to hold DVDs, drilled shelf bracket holes in the closed cabinet to move the big shelf down, and added new hardware to freshen the look. I also had to disassemble the large door, learn to cut glass, then put that back together into a smaller door.

Making the drawer front was probably the hardest part. A friend let me borrow his raised panel bit for my shaper. That huge bit turning at 10,000 rpm was one of the most frightening things I’ve ever seen.

Here’s the finished results loaded up with geeky stuff.

After: Modified entertainment center.