Ikea Cupboards TV Stand with Shiplap Fireplace

Sometimes you run out of projects so you put in Ikea Kitchen cabinets for the TV stand and a fireplace. Costing around $3,500, it was quite expensive but it was a lot of fun and brought me joy. The fireplace is great since the basement can be cold and a fireplace looks a lot better than a space heater. I didn't want the TV above the fireplace since the ceiling is under 8 feet tall and it would raise the TV quite a bit. I hadn't seen many entertainment walls with the 2/3, 1/3 split so I thought it looks unique.  Hopefully this will inspire someone to do their own entertainment wall. 

Materials:

Fireplace: $745.50 - Amazon Link

Receiver: $400 - Amazon Link

Cabinets: $1292.90 - IKEA

Anchors: $11.54

Shelfs Brackets: $57.84 - Amazon Link

Lumber: $145.59 - Home Depot Link

Handles: $78 - Esty Link

Shiplap: $211 - Home Depot Link

Speakers: $608

Total: $3550.37

Tools:

Cordless Drill ~ $200 - Amazon Link

Hammer Shot ~ $90 - Amazon Link

4 Foot Level ~$23 - Amazon Link

Nail Gun - $200 - Amazon Link

Circular Saw ~ $200 - Amazon Link

Oscillating Multi-Tool ~ $70 - Amazon Link

Total: $783

Time Commitment: 40 Hours (I work slow)

Step 1: Planning the Space - Kitchen Planner Link

With IKEA there are many combinations and options which can be overwhelming. Did I want four cupboards? Maybe just two really big cupboards? I ended up picking three with a clear glass front for the middle cupboard. You can customize the room size, wall height and shape. I wanted most of the room dedicated to entertainment so I entered the size of the room then divide it into 3. 2/3s of the room would be for the TV and 1/3 for the fireplace. Picking the cupboards was a game of how close could I get without going over. If the cupboards don't quite fill the space you can always add filler (plain cupboard thinly cut) on each side. I used 3.5 inches of filler on each side. 

 

Step 2: Mounting Cupboards

Luckily IKEA comes with instructions so building the actual units is quite simple. The tricky part is mounting the mounting bar, plus since the room was so large I had to mount two of them perfectly aligned. Because I was mounting the cupboard in a basement I had to make sure to measure up multiple places since the floor is not perfectly flat. Once I found the highest point I leveled the bar to that measurement. You can always have extra space below but you cannot make the cupboard any shorter so its better to have the cupboard mounted too high. The kickplate hides the height differential.  

After the cupboard were mounted and hanging on the rail I marked the location of the outlets then cut them out with a Oscillating Multi-Tool.

Putting in the filler cupboard can be a bit tricky since the cupboard face is so thin a screw could damage the finish. To overcome this I cut the filler to 3.5 inches then glued the filler to a 2x4 before screwing the 2x4 to the cupboard. This left the filler screw free yet super secured with the 2x4.  

Step 3: Countertop 

I didn't realize when I purchase the counter top that is only comes in the full size for base cabinets. The IKEA kitchen planner just automatically buys you every piece required to complete the project which is convenient but confusing. Because of this I had to manually cut each piece to size with a circular saw.   

The counter wasn't long enough to cover all the cabinets so I had to buy two of them. I was thinking of just butting the two up pieces perfectly symmetrically in the middle but I was worried I would cut one of them wrong and ruin a countertop which are quite expensive. I cut it to the second cabinet and I think it looks good enough. 

Step 3B: Side Project - Wall Shelves

Buying two countertop and only using 2/3 of it, I had a lot of extra countertop. I got the idea to turn the excess into shelves with black shelf wall mounts. It would be nice to have three shelfs but I think the two turned out pretty good. 

Step 4: Framing Fireplace 

Building the fireplace actually wasn't to difficult. The initial walls studs don't need to be level since it will all be hidden. I wanted the fireplace to be slightly further out than the cabinets since I thought that would look better. Framing the wall to the ceiling was tricky since I didn't want to crack the drywall. Other than that, just building normal walls.

I purchased the fireplace first so that I could be 100% sure about the size when framing the fireplace opening. 

Step 4B: Electrical

The fireplace came with a plain electrical plug attached and there was an outlet right by where I was building the fireplace, but I wanted to be fancy and I had room on my electrical panel so I just ran my own dedicated outlet to the fireplace to avoid overloading the circuit with all the entertainment on it. If you are wondering how to install a wire, you will need to get some 22/4 wire and then watch a video on how to connect a circuit to a breaker box. If not very difficult but it would be hard to describe. 

  

I was originally planning to do tile for the fireplace, but I decided against it because tile is expensive and I have never installed tile before. I ended up doing shiplap since its easy to install and much cheaper. I actually didn't need to install drywall since I used shiplap but I guess I could always remove shiplap and install tile later.   

Step 5: Shiplap

Installing shiplap is pretty simple. Start from the bottom, nail on the top flap with a nail gun, leveling each piece as you go. The last piece is difficult since it has to butt up to the ceiling but DAP will cover a lot of mistakes. DAP is just white caulking compound that is used to fill gaps and cracks. I used a lot of it for this project. For the corner I didn't bother doing 45 degree cuts because that looked like a lot of work so I just bought a white MDF corner piece and nailed it in which covered all the horrible cuts I did. 

Step 6: Installing Electronics 

Installing the fireplace is straight forward. Once the fireplace is powered up and tested, I just placed it in the opening and screwed it in on each side into the studs. 

When finishing the basement I wired in some in ceiling speakers for surround sound just in case. I decided to wire it all into a receiver and mount the right and left speaker. Luckily I know how to fish wires so it wasn't to bad hiding all the wires going to the receiver.  

Having built in storage is always handy for hiding toys, games and blankets. Being built in adds value to the house elevating the living space.

Overall this project was on the expensive end but if this project was contracted out it would be around $6,000 - $8,000 saving quite a bit of money by putting in the sweat equity myself. Every time you have a project that you are able to tackle yourself you are costing the cost of the project in half give or take. So if there is a project you have been thinking about doing, get at it.