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Cut Off At The Knees
Jan. 4th, 2014 10:29 pmWe got a new widescreen TV for Christmas, but we didn't really have a place to put it. We've already got a widescreen in the basement, so obviously it was for upstairs, where we had a bulky old CRT which just barely fit into our home entertainment unit. My dad had said we should just go out and buy a stand, which I hadn't gotten around to because it was either a) "Boxing Week", b) back to work after Christmas holidays, or c) very very cold.
When I was talking to him this afternoon, I got to thinking about what we would do with the old entertainment centre, and I realized we didn't really have space for it anywhere. It would be nice to have in the basement, because we need someplace to put the Wii and DVD player and PVR and other stuff which is currently just sitting on the floor, but it won't fit to either side of, or underneath, our existing widescreen, and most of the rest of the wallspace down there is taken up with bookshelves (natch). So all we could really do with it was get rid of it. Or was it?
The entertainment centre (unmemorialized in photography, so I guess I'll just to use 1000 words instead) was of course organized around the big central area where the TV went, with glass-doored cupboards to either side; a shelf overtop which was where we kept that TV's PVR and DVD player (and far too much other junk, over time); a slot underneath which may have been intended for a VCR or anything, but which didn't have any hole in the backing to put wires through so we just put other stuff there; and wooden-doored cupboards underneath. I don't remember if it was originally an Ikea thing, but I definitely recall putting it together. So...why couldn't we take it apart?
The base of it, with the cupboards and even the silly slot, was all we really needed. The rest of it looked like it could be removed. So, in an unusual fit of Saturday afternoon activity, I decided to actually do it. Many of the pieces were assembled using the method where you screw a bunch of notched metal pegs into some piece(s), stick those pegs into holes in the other piece(s), then put in these "cam" things and tighten them to hold the pegs in place. I figured I should be able to unscrew the cams and then pull the pegs back out, but I was having trouble getting it to work at first. I removed the glass doors, then pulled off the little thin backing that had been nailed in place, and finally realized I was unscrewing the cams too far--when I loosened them a bit more, then suddenly things started pulling out easily.
The sides of the side cupboards were actually attached to the base the TV rested on (which I wanted to keep) with Allen-wrench screws; the inner sides had their screws easily accessible via the bottom cupboards, but unfortunately the outer sides were lined up with the bottom cupboard sides, so I actually had to loosen those cams and lift up the base before I could unscrew it. I hadn't bothered to actually move the old TV (even though I knew I'd have to anyway), but I had to, of course, to lift up the base.
So my idea actually worked, and now I have a somewhat truncated entertainment centre turned into a stand, with a bunch of holes in the top that aren't being used for anything any more. (No pictures of that, either. What is this, Instagram?) After that, it was almost anticlimax to actually unpack the new TV, attach it to the base, plug it in, hook it up to the PVR, and then pretty much have it "just work". Okay, it took me a couple of minutes to figure out how to set it to use widescreen mode, and set the PVR to use that mode too, and then to get the PVR remote to connect to it, but now it's all set up and now we have an old TV to get rid of. As an old CRT, it's probably one of those things that should go to the Eco Station, which means it'll probably wait until spring at the current rate, but that's okay. We've still got a lot of space in the storage room being taken up by empty boxes, which we've been getting rid of slowly since the move (with a brief hiatus when one of our friends needed some for her own move). Actually, I think the TV's original box is the big one that I've letting the kids play with/in, but I suppose there's no reason we have to deprive them of that, because, you know, box.
Oh, and the TV's a Toshiba, HD, 32 inch. We're not actually using HD right now--we have no Blu-Ray player, nor do we have a HD PVR. But it's pretty nice anyway.
When I was talking to him this afternoon, I got to thinking about what we would do with the old entertainment centre, and I realized we didn't really have space for it anywhere. It would be nice to have in the basement, because we need someplace to put the Wii and DVD player and PVR and other stuff which is currently just sitting on the floor, but it won't fit to either side of, or underneath, our existing widescreen, and most of the rest of the wallspace down there is taken up with bookshelves (natch). So all we could really do with it was get rid of it. Or was it?
The entertainment centre (unmemorialized in photography, so I guess I'll just to use 1000 words instead) was of course organized around the big central area where the TV went, with glass-doored cupboards to either side; a shelf overtop which was where we kept that TV's PVR and DVD player (and far too much other junk, over time); a slot underneath which may have been intended for a VCR or anything, but which didn't have any hole in the backing to put wires through so we just put other stuff there; and wooden-doored cupboards underneath. I don't remember if it was originally an Ikea thing, but I definitely recall putting it together. So...why couldn't we take it apart?
The base of it, with the cupboards and even the silly slot, was all we really needed. The rest of it looked like it could be removed. So, in an unusual fit of Saturday afternoon activity, I decided to actually do it. Many of the pieces were assembled using the method where you screw a bunch of notched metal pegs into some piece(s), stick those pegs into holes in the other piece(s), then put in these "cam" things and tighten them to hold the pegs in place. I figured I should be able to unscrew the cams and then pull the pegs back out, but I was having trouble getting it to work at first. I removed the glass doors, then pulled off the little thin backing that had been nailed in place, and finally realized I was unscrewing the cams too far--when I loosened them a bit more, then suddenly things started pulling out easily.
The sides of the side cupboards were actually attached to the base the TV rested on (which I wanted to keep) with Allen-wrench screws; the inner sides had their screws easily accessible via the bottom cupboards, but unfortunately the outer sides were lined up with the bottom cupboard sides, so I actually had to loosen those cams and lift up the base before I could unscrew it. I hadn't bothered to actually move the old TV (even though I knew I'd have to anyway), but I had to, of course, to lift up the base.
So my idea actually worked, and now I have a somewhat truncated entertainment centre turned into a stand, with a bunch of holes in the top that aren't being used for anything any more. (No pictures of that, either. What is this, Instagram?) After that, it was almost anticlimax to actually unpack the new TV, attach it to the base, plug it in, hook it up to the PVR, and then pretty much have it "just work". Okay, it took me a couple of minutes to figure out how to set it to use widescreen mode, and set the PVR to use that mode too, and then to get the PVR remote to connect to it, but now it's all set up and now we have an old TV to get rid of. As an old CRT, it's probably one of those things that should go to the Eco Station, which means it'll probably wait until spring at the current rate, but that's okay. We've still got a lot of space in the storage room being taken up by empty boxes, which we've been getting rid of slowly since the move (with a brief hiatus when one of our friends needed some for her own move). Actually, I think the TV's original box is the big one that I've letting the kids play with/in, but I suppose there's no reason we have to deprive them of that, because, you know, box.
Oh, and the TV's a Toshiba, HD, 32 inch. We're not actually using HD right now--we have no Blu-Ray player, nor do we have a HD PVR. But it's pretty nice anyway.
