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Our DIY Built-in Media Center Reveal (Material List & Cost Included)

Ready to take on building an entertainment center for your family room? It’s not as difficult as you might think. So if you’re willing to invest the time and effort, you can create your own custom built-in for a fraction of what the professionals charge.

Read on to find out how we designed and created this piece in just a week!

DIY Built-in Media Center

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How much does it cost to build a built-in entertainment center?

Initially, we went the route of reaching out to a professional contractor to get a bid on a custom media built-in. I was expecting it to be on the expensive side, but my jaw dropped at the $5,500 price tag.

No way could I justify spending that much on piece of furniture. Especially when we still had so many repairs and upgrades to make in our home. So we put it off for about 2 years until we were more confident in our (errr, my hubby’s) DIY abilities. Although I do take full credit for the design plan.

Our new custom entertainment center came in at a total cost of around $1,100. That’s including all building materials, finishing details and paint. Not too shabby compared to the original contractor’s estimate of $5,500 right? It definitely pays to DIY.

diy built in entertainment center plans

This was the initial direction we wanted to go in for our entertainment center design. And I’m actually really glad we waited to go through with it.

I completely changed up the design after getting tired of the all shiplap trend. Don’t hate me, I still love Joanna Gaines, I just don’t want my home to feel like everyone else’s.

Plus this new design is a bit more modern and clean looking. Which is what I’m really into right now.

DIY Built-in Media Center

Our main wall in our living room is fairly large and tall so I wanted to make sure the size of our built-in was proportionate to the wall. And boy is it! At over 8 feet tall and around 11 feet wide, this thing is massive.

One of the biggest decisions of this DIY entertainment center was how to create the built-in media cabinets for the lower portion. And an easy hack was just to use pre-made wall cabinets from Lowe’s.

We went this route before, with our DIY bathroom stacked countertop cabinets and it looks custom!

Why wall cabinets? Because they’re half the depth of traditional base cabinets, and I didn’t want to see the indented toe-kick portion where the cabinets meet the floors. Also, using pre-made cabinets meant one less thing to actually build for this project.

You can see how we used these same type cabinets in our bathroom vanity makeover here.

DIY Built-in Media Center

How do you build a built in entertainment center?

Since we were pretty much winging the build on this project, I didn’t bother capturing step-by-step photos or specific measurements. But I can give you a breakdown of the exact materials we used to construct it, along with a general guideline of how it was assembled.

Materials Used for the DIY Built-in Media Center

Step 1 – Create the base & ATTACH WALL CABINETS

The base was constructed using 1″x6″ boards because I wanted the cabinet bases to be raised 6 inches off the ground. Looking back I probably should have used 1x4s and reduced some of the work, but hey, lesson learned.

Each cabinet platform was constructed separately, and then attached together before being anchored to the wall. This was due to the bump out of the center cabinet console.

DIY Built-in Media Center
Top View of Cabinet Platform

After the platform was installed it was topped with three sections of plywood and attached to the base so that you can sit the cabinets on top. Finally you’ll want to secure the cabinets to the platform base and wall once you’ve made sure they’re level.

*A note about securing the cabinets to the wall…

Because I chose to have the middle section bump out a few inches, we couldn’t secure those cabinets directly to the wall. Instead, we used 1×4 boards to act as a spacer between the wall and cabinets and attached the cabinets directly to those boards once they were anchored to the wall studs.

DIY Built-in Media Center
Cabinets secured to wall and platform base

STEP 2 – Attach tops to the wall cabinets

Next, you’ll want to create 3 separate tops to attach on top of your cabinets to serve as the base for your built-in bookshelves (the top structures). For all of these visible areas, we used a high quality sanded plywood so that we could achieve a flawless paint finish.

DIY Built-in Media Center

STEP 3 – construct 3 upper sections & secure cabinets to wall

Honestly, this is the part that seemed so darn scary and overwhelming to me. I’ve never attempted to create built-in shelves before, but our new Kreg Jig made this ridiculously easy.

It was as simple as measuring the height of the sides of our bookcases and cutting 2 identical boards for each side. And then 3 boards for the actual shelves to be attached.

DIY Built-in Media Center

Adding an MDF panel to the back of each unit helps to keep it stabilized. But it’s also great for creating a smooth surface to paint.

DIY Built-in Media Center

The only difference in constructing the center unit was the overall width and only needing to cut 2 boards for the top shelf versus 3.

Finally when the upper units are stable and level, you can then secure them to the studs in your wall.

DIY Built-in Media Center

STEP 4 – trim it out

My husband would tell you that adding the trim to this massive unit was easily the longest part of the project.

DIY Built-in Media Center

Baseboards were attached to the bottom of the platform base. And 1″x6″ MDF boards were secured to the top of the base to allow crown molding to be attached to it. A simple nail gun was all that was needed to add the trim work to the unit.

DIY Built-in Media Center

The exposed, rough sides of the cabinets were all covered in 1/4″ sanded plywood to match the smoother sides of the upper units.

DIY Built-in Media Center

Finally, the entire face frame was trimmed out in 1″x6″ MDF board. This covered the rough areas of the cut plywood shelves and bases. It also wrapped around the side of the unit where the upper built-in bookshelves met the lower cabinet bases to cover the wood seams.

DIY Built-in Media Center

STEP 5 – caulk all seams and fill holes

Everyone’s least favorite step to installing trim, but definitely the most necessary if you want a professionally finished look. You’ll want to caulk all trim seams and fill all screw and nail holes with wood filler.

Personally I’d recommend filling your holes and sanding them down before adding your caulk. This prevents a lot of dust debris from settling in your fresh caulk lines.

STEP 6 – paint and add hardware

We used the same steps to paint the new built-in entertainment center as we did in our bathroom vanity makeover. The only difference was hand rolling everything. It was way too cold outside to use the paint sprayer in the garage.

This piece took two coats of primer and was finished with three coats of Satin finish Benjamin Moore Advance Paint in the color “Simply White”.

I highly recommend using Benjamin Moore Advance paint for all cabinet painting projects. You can read my full review of it here.

DIY Built-in Media Center

Turned out pretty good right? Oh and if you’re wondering about those pretty brass sconce lights, they’re strictly decorative. At least until we get around to running the electric for them. But I’ll be sure to let you know how that goes.

Decorating After Christmas

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61 Comments

  1. Love this, I notice the center cabinets are deeper than the outside cabinets. Wall cabinets are usually 12″ deep. Where did you find deeper wall cabinets? If you used 12″ cabinets, how did you get them to work?

  2. I love this build. You did an amazing job! I did have a question about your built in book shelves. It shows you used 3/4 inch sanded ply for the book shelf, but you faced the front with 1×2 (actual dimensions .75×1.5). Does this mean that there is a lip inside the book self from the trim pieces? The pictures all look like the inside of the shelves are smooth with no lip.

  3. Love love this.
    Do you have a list of tools. I don’t even know where to start. I have a good drill and that’s it.
    Could I start by just getting the base cabinets first and adding from there? I’m on a tight budget. I was just going to get base cabinets anyhow, but like your whole entertainment center better.

    This would be my first DIY build. But I’ve watched a bunch of UTube videos 😉
    Thank you.

  4. Hello, nice build. I notice that the base units are not all the same depth. normal wall cabinet boxes are 12″ deep. What did you use for the center boxes?
    Thanks!

  5. Hi! What color are your walls? We’re looking at doing an entertainment center like this and I love the contrast with your walls (our walls are currently white).

  6. Hi! This looks amazing and I am tempted to build one. My only question is, how could I go about doing this to where I could eventually move it easily? Would we just not attach it to the wall? We are military and move every so many years to a new house. What’s the best way to build it to take it apart without removing every single screw/piece? Or is this more of a permanent fixture?

    1. Hi Amy, thank you so much! This is a more permanent piece unfortunately. But if I were trying to build one so that I could move it and reassemble, I would probably make it into 4 separate units. Each side piece could be its own separate tower, so build the book case on top of the cabinet. And then your center base would be fairly easy just securing the cabinets together, and the final separate piece would be that center hutch that sits on top. Totally doable, but I’m not a furniture building expert. This was a first 🙂

    1. Hi Bonnie! I’m so sorry, I don’t. This was really a trial run project that ended up turning out wonderful. I can tell you that we drilled pocket holes on the undersides of the shelves and attached to the sides of the bookcases before they were installed on top of the unit. The we filled the holes, sanded and painted 🙂 Let me know if you have any other questions.

  7. How thick was the wood that you used for the actual shelves in the built in? Are they 1 inch or 3/4? And what material was used to make those shelves?

  8. I love this built in entertainment center! I am looking to do something very similar in our upstairs bonus/playroom. One question.. How do you hide or cover/conceal the pocket holes you made when attaching the top shelves to the base units? Thanks!

    1. Hi Kyle! I think we bumped it out about 4 inches and placed a wood support brace behind it to anchor it to the wall. Honestly I think 65″ could still look pretty nice in this setup. I sometimes wish I had a bit more of the backdrop showing so I could do a fun pattern wallpaper or even faux white brick behind it.

  9. I have a couple question on this beautiful build. How did you attach the shelving to the base cabinets? Do they just sit on the base cabinets? Also, how did you attach the shelving to the wall?

    1. Hi Sadie! We put an insert behind the middle section base cabinets to have it stick out more so I would just simply line all of the cabinets up and attach them to the wall and base.

  10. I love what you have built! I’m curious if it’s ever difficult to see the TV with it being set back in the cabinet. We also have a two story wall in our family room and would love to do something similar.

    1. Hi Ellen, thanks so much! my husband added an extra outlet behind the tv so no wires are visible. We use this one for streaming so there aren’t any other wired devices and we use external bluetooth speakers. I hope that helps!

  11. This is gorgeous! I’m getting ready to build something similar myself. Can you share what you used to secure the cabinets to each other and the studs? Did you use nails or screws?

    Thank you!!

  12. I love your built in; such a beautiful design. How did you manage the TV cables behind the TV? We have so many I have no idea how to keep them from showing.

  13. Looks great! Please answer a curious specification question for me, are the sides to the upper shelving unit cut to a depth of 12″ or less? I can’t quite tell from the pictures but it does look like the trim pieces are not flush which I like but I wanted to make sure when I build. Thank you .

    1. Thanks Jason! I think the shelf depth might be slightly larger than 12″, it should be the same depth as the actual cabinets we used underneath.

  14. Adding the base at the beginning did that keep you from having to cut your baseboards? Or did you guys cut and remove that section of baseboards?

  15. Hi! I love your built in wall unit you made. Do you have about how many of each item you purchased? As far as the ply wood sheets, crown molding? any help is appreciated.

    1. Hi Jessica! Thanks so much! This was more of a trial build so I didn’t keep track of the exact amount of supplies we purchased, but I did provide the measurements for the pieces. I hope that’s helpful!

  16. Fantastic job!! I did something similar in my basement remodel (peoniesandpowertools.com). I love your blog as well. So well designed! I am still learning and love to admire other’s work. I’ll keep watching! Ellie

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