...almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.: My First DIY Project

Wouldn't it be funny to watch someone with essentially zero carpentry skills attempt to fumble their way through a mildly complex furniture update/remodelling? To stand by as they ask stupid questions like, "What the hell is that thing?" "A chisel is a flat head screwdriver, right?" and "Where's the chainsaw?"

Well, now you can do just that! ..... Sort of. I'll be posting mildly humorous (to me, anyways) updates showing each stage of my attempt to turn an old stereo cabinet (that I got at a garage sale 4 years ago for $20) into something that is fairly pleasant to look at, so that my parents finally stop suggesting that it would be better served as feed for a very hungry wood chipper. The cabinet originally featured a very basic turntable, an AM/FM radio, and a small storage area for your records, as well as an outrageous amount of wasted interior space and several dead spiders.

No, I don't own any coasters. Why do you ask?

As you can see, I've taken great care of my investment. I think only 80% of that water damage occurred since I took ownership of this piece. I got rid of the original turntable as soon as I got the cabinet home. It barely worked, wasn't level, and the needle on it was done. I installed a turntable that belonged to my grandma, but had difficulty getting it to work consistently. Now I have a brand new Audio Technica turntable that I'm going to be installing into the cabinet, although I'm not quite sure how yet.

The first step in my project is to strip the cabinet of all the electronic pieces. This was not as easy as I had hoped. The wires would not detach from the main hub on the radio, nor from the speakers. The speakers are screwed in from the front, beneath those lovely (plastic) grills and under a speaker cloth that is pasted onto the front board. To make matters worse, I can't detach the grills on the left side of the cabinet because the sleeve for holding your records prevents me from accessing those screws. At this point, I have been working on this project for about 1 hour and have already considered getting the chainsaw numerous times. I decided to put the radio and all its electronic components in a plastic bag for protection and to just work around it for now.

I think that I have figured out how the whole thing is held together and have decided that to do anything meaningful with this cabinet, I'm going to have to knock out the main piece under the lid of the cabinet, design a new layout for the radio and turntable, and cut a new board. This includes making cuts to hold my turntable, the radio, and any storage I may want to add in there.

I'm also considering what should be done with the wasted space inside. I'd like to convert the two middle plastic grills on the front into cupboard doors, but it doesn't seem likely. I'm willing to take some suggestions on what could be done with that.