Look at the cubes in the corners of this rack. They are not an afterthought, and are not loose. They are the corners of the shelves, coming through the L-shaped foot list.

I had never seen anything like this, when I first used the design in this rack. The frame corner joints here are 45 deg picture frame designs. I have also a very similar design in the showcase (press right arrow in heading).

I may have invented this, but I find that quite unlikely. The solution is so obvious! If you have seen or used this before, please mail me and I will link up any internet page that contains a picture.

The cause of the invention (again, if that is what it is), is that there was a lot of traffic right past the rack. It would not look nice with a straight corner, legs and trousers could easily suffer. So I cut a 45 deg in the top corners, and made the feet follow the same thinking.At that stage of the design, the shelf frames just came through the feet.

And I wanted the rack to easily dispose of heat, and have heat pass easily through it. So, I made the shelves as frames only, with a groove along all sides for flat lists. The final furniture has frames as shelves - with these loose lists that the owner can cut and adapt to new uses. The rear feet are placed - and the rack top is made - so that the air also will flow in the back.

The rack is birch, but the shelf lists are pine.

I also made some left to right loose lists inside the shelves, so that the shelf lists may be cut to any usage. Even a subwoofer is hanging in threads inside the rack. Needed for the bad sound of modern television sets.

The table top is fastened with screws in front. I wanted this to be solid, so that the whole rack with contents and TV could be lifted without danger of anything breaking loose. See right tilted picture, one screw down and one up into the table top. Then, the table top slides in the back (left tilted picture), to avoid it to dry and get destroyed. I also glued the table top. Two lists underneath are loosely screwed, and the top expands and contracts fine. After about a year's use there is no sign of cracks.

Underneath the feet, thick felt is fastened. The structure pulls out easily.

The rack was washed with green or soft soap (Norwegian: "grønnsåpe"), and then sanded with fine grained paper.

As the needs change, as we all know they will, this rack will be able to adapt. It is small, but the design gives it a spacious inside. This has already been field tested!

Update (Nov2013): Now, after having placed and removed quite many different units in this cabinet over some five years, here is a tip: Make one of the heights between shelves higher than the other.

When I had to insert an Apple Airport Time Capule, the tower version, it was difficult to get it in. It's about 10x10 cm on the base, and I barely could slide it in, since the largest height was about 10.5 cm. I have made it hanging in rubber bands crossing a shelf. The previous flat Time Capsule all of a sudden was in need for a repair; it might have been too vulnerable on vibration (obs. resonance!) from f.ex. importing CDs into iTunes. Since they are speeded up they easily start to vibrate, and when is too much. The Mac Mini 's disk I imported into managed will, but the Time Capsule's disk may have had a bad day. This is only a hypothesis. I will make a picture to show this. After this I bough the little external disk drive, which vibrated less (higher speed or better damped), and made importing from CDs a no-risk encounter. (CDs in 2013? Not all audio books are downloadable yet, my wife loves them!)

I did insert a large speaker five years ago, but that thing I lifted in and up from underneath. This is also possible, in case you absolutely don't want to make the heights between shelves to differ. It also hangs!

I don't know how many lists I have cut in and later had to replace. This rack is very flexible, and takes virtually everything!

©2008-2013 - Original design and woodcraft by Øyvind Teig, Trondheim, Norway
with reflected replies to "what do you think about this" questions from me, by my wife Mari. Thanks!
Please help me with the English terms here, I'm not a woodwork-English specialist!

Search words in Norwegian: Hjemmesnekret tv-benk, stereobenk, multimediabenk, hjemmelagd, bjørk, grønnsåpevasket