Floating Media Cabinets

One of Matt and my latest projects we had to get done before Greta arrived... 

I drew the cabinets on SketchUp first to make sure I had all the measurements and joint details figured out first.  Here is a front view of the linear floating media part and the vertical coffee station that sits on top of the left side by the kitchen:

Here's a back view that I used to figure out how we were attaching them to the wall.  I knew french cleats would be more stable for the weight than screwing through the cabinets into studs.  Plus this way- you don't see any screws or hardware.  It was trickier to figure out the boxes though and allow for the back details with all of our cuts.  The only thing that changed is the square holes shown on here- became round circles in slightly different spots for the chords to go through:

We designed and built these media cabinets for our living room since I couldn't find anything out there that was what I wanted for the price I wanted to pay.

 We started with cabinet-grade birch plywood sheets we cut to size, and bought a small router to cut each of the grooves and joints so each piece fit together perfectly.

I got 1/4" thick plexiglass from our local hardware store and did a paint test-patch to decide if I wanted the sliding doors to be back-painted white, grey, or sanded for a frosted look...

We decided on one sanded and one white:

The smaller media cabinet put together and dry-fit to make sure it all works the way we hoped!

I stained each piece and then we glued each joint together and used a nail gun with small nails just to hold the corners so the glue would dry where we wanted it.

Finished:

[after many months of weekends and nights used to work on this monster!]

 We also added hooks on the coffee station top shelf to hang mugs from and attached power strips below the cabinets for the chords to plug in and be more hidden:

Also shown against the stenciled wall I posted about a while back: