Modified Ikea Leksvik

[Stoatman]

After hunting around for a cabinet with doors, with enough space for all my gear at a reasonable price. I finally settled on the Leksvik at £89. A bit of a bargain, especially as the doors are lockable to keep little fingers away (my little one is now 7 months).

After tips found on this site about the x brace thingy, I ditched the fibreboard back and went for this. It works well, I also added a few corner braces to ensure the cabinet will not flex that much when moved.The new tv helps as it only weighs about 6 kilos (compared to about 30 for the CRT tv !).

A word of caution though, the catch for the locking mechanism is rubbish and therefore i added 2 new ones on the left hand door.

I can recommend the cabinent especially for the price and with a few adjustments.

p.s (only just moved, so "gear" only actually consists of a humax freeview box at the mo !)

[Battlestar]

I am looking at getting one of these of the weekend. I am going to get rid of the flimsy hard board back and use some thicker MDF with holes cut out for cables and ventilation.

[AMc]

Looks familar! The X brace works better than MDF and is £1 or £2 at IKEA.

I also glued the main joints and drilled extra shelf support holes further up and down the sides so I can have more flexibility in positioning. The top shelf only has my wireless repeater, PS2 and remote control collection so it doesn't need to be as low down as designed.

One word of advice - don't put the doors on until you've put any full width components in. I can't get my Tivo and amp in or out with them on - which is annoying if you've spent time leveling the doors properly then have to take them off again!

[scyph]

I'm in a similar position in that my 18 month old has just pulled the second bit of equipment off the shelves of my completely open AV stand and I need something more enclosed.

I'll be putting the stand into an alcove and I'm concerned about the equipment overheating if the only air entrance/exit is at the back.

I'll be having a 7 channel 100 watt/channel amp, xbox, wii, sky box, NAS (hard drive) and dvd player in the unit as a minimum.

Am I being over cautious?

Thanks,
JT.