TV Lift Cabinet with Fireplace and Storage Build

[Dan Walters]

I promised to post a thread showing my modifications to my 2005 Winnebago Vectra that is new to me.  I started this project and did most of the work on it over the Christmas/New Years Holidays and just competed the project last week.

The TV in our Winnie is mounted in the front, like many motorhomes, and had been updated prior to my owning the rig to a flat screen from the old CRT television.  I like having that one there while I work at the dining table and face the front of the motorhome.  But, it is not the very good for just sitting on the couch, which faces the curb side of the coach, and watching a movie or other shows for longer periods of time.  I would get a sore neck doing that.  So, my plan was to remove the jackknife sofa in the curb side slide out and build a cabinet that would house a TV lift, a fireplace, and add some storage space.  Most of the time, it's just me and my wife in the coach, so we really didn't need the other sofa.  When our grandkids occasionally stay with us overnight, I use an air mattress for them to sleep on, which is more comfortable than the jackknife sofa anyway.

I had seen a post on another web site from someone who had done this by removing the dinning booth and I based my build generally on his build, with some modifications specific to my coach.  The first thing I had to do was to add an electrical outlet to power the tv, lift, fireplace and sound bar.  There was an outlet on the end of the kitchen cabinet, but it was too high and too far toward the front of the cabinets to be hidden inside the new cabinet that I was going to build.  The wires running to that cabinet were long enough for me to splice a new electrical box down low and further toward the outside wall of the slide.

I then started building my frame for the cabinet, taking up the whole space where the sofa was.  I mounted the tv lift to the floor and to two 2" X 4" supports mounted to the outside wall of the slide, measuring to make sure I had enough space for the top door to swing up and open when the tv lifts out of the cabinet.  From there, I boxed in the tv and built a frame for the fireplace to mount in front of the tv, leaving about 7 or 8 inches between the back of the fireplace and the front of the tv enclosure.  I used 1" X 2" cedar strips and a couple of 1" X 4" cedar boards to build most of the frame to keep the weight down.  I glued and screwed the strips together and to the slide walls and used wood glue and a Kreg jig for the screws.  The front is cut out of a sheet of 1/2 inch birch plywood and the top is cut out of a sheet of 3/4 inch birch plywood.


I made the doors out of 1/2 inch plywood and glued the wooden cabinet doors off of my Norcold 1200 rv freezer doors to the larger plywood doors so that it would match the other cabinets in the motorhome.  The Norcold rv fridge had gone out and I replaced it with a residential fridge, so I saved the wood panels off of that.  I also replaced the sofa on the drivers side slide out with 2 recliner/theater seats since we now have a 55 inch tv in the lift cabinet straight accross from those seats.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the build.  Feel free to comment or ask questions about it and thanks for reading.

 

[John Canfield]

Well done Dan!  ) ) I need to build several cabinets for the stick house and I noticed you are using pocket holes for joining face frames. The lead carpenter for our recent house remodeling/addition used pocket holes for joinery - I liked what I saw and I bought a Kreg kit and table. Very slick system.

 

[Dan Walters]

Thanks John.  I really like the way the Kreg system joins the pieces for cabinet work.  You're right, it's a slick system.

 

[Joezeppy]

Wow, that looks fantastic. Great work!

 

[ChasA]

Really very nice.

 

[John Hilley]

Very nice. Thanks for posting such a complete series of construction pictures

 

[RedandSilver]

Thanks John.  I really like the way the Kreg system joins the pieces for cabinet work.  You're right, it's a slick system.

I used the Kreg system to build new drawers because the original ones were to short.
When I looked at the pictures (before I read the write up) I knew right away that you used the Kreg system too.

Everything you did looked fine.

 

[RedandSilver]

Just curious.

Your removed 2 sofas? Is that right?
But you still have a dinning table? right?

Were the sofas easy to remove through the RV door - or did they disassemble making removal easier?

Did you stain the wood?  If so, what did you use?

Did you have to drill holes for an antenna or cable hookup?

 

[Daffy]

As a fellow wood worker myself, FANTASTIC Job!! Been trying to convince the better half to remove the chair and do something similar. Your pics may be just what she needs to "envision" it.

 

[Dan Walters]

Thanks for the questions.  Yes, I removed the jackknife sofa where I built the tv lift cabinet and the other sofa/double recliner from the other side (picture below) and replaced it with the double theater seating.  The reclining double sofa with the pull out, pop-up ottomans came apart in several pieces, so I was able to get it out through the door with the passenger captain's chair removed.  The jackknife sofa also went through the door in one piece, with it folded flat.

I did stain the wood with Gunstock Varathane Wood Stain from Home Depot and put 2 coats of Varathane Satin Polyurethane finish.

The small box with lights on it on the right side of the sound bar is a wireless HDMI receiver.  I put a wireless transmitter up in the cabinet beside the overhead TV.  It has 3 HDMI inputs, 1 wired HDMI output, and 2 wireless HDMI outputs.  The other wireless receiver is on the bedroom TV.  I hooked up my DirecTV to one of the inputs, the Blu Ray Player to one input, the front TV to the wired output, the new TV on the lift to one of the wireless outputs and the rear bedroom TV to the other wireless output.  That allowed me to transmit the Satelite TV to all three TV's and the Blu Ray player to all three TV's.

 

[Dan Walters]

Oh, and I forgot.  I do still have a dining table.  It is beside the theater seating.  I am currently working and using the dining table as my work table, so I have a couple of TV trays in between the dining table and the theater seats where I have my printer set up.  Both of the dining chairs are on the other side of the table next to the fridge. See the pic below before I put the theater seating in.

 

[Mile High]

Very nice!