Florida Craftwood Blog: 2019

Friday, November 22, 2019

Office Bookshelves in a Corner with Window Seat

This is one of the last projects I did before retirement. I am leaving this blog online so that people can see the work that I did from 1988 until the end of 2019. These are built of birch plywood and poplar facing.

Monday, September 16, 2019

Painted Office Bookshelf Cabinets

These are preliminary photos of an office bookshelf cabinet that runs from wall to wall in a front room of a house that has French doors leading to the room making the room officially a home office area.

These are built of birch plywood and poplar facing. All the doors and drawers are inset into the faces while the doors have self-closing Blum hinges. The drawers have center line slides that extend fully The electrical outlet is inside the large storage cabinet base to the left and holes are drilled in the top back section of the bases to lead the electrical wires into the center section along with grommet holes drilled in the top center section. Then an electrical strip box can be used for the electrical outlet plug to make the arrangement more permanently convenient.

The customer may provide a photo with everything in use later which will be posted here also.

Here are the updated photos below.

This is a nice shot that encompasses the entire room.

Here's the last one that the clients have provided of the finished product.

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Built-in Red Oak Entertainment Center and Bookshelf Cabinet

This is a recent entertainment center in a newer Florida home that is designed to fill in a recessed space in the existing wall. This utilizes an open shelf design without doors and looks really nice.

This is red oak with red oak plywood as a structure to the build. The facing is solid red oak, baseboard, and bed molding trim at top. The baseboard is slightly higher than the existing colonial baseboard trim that is painted white. The stain color is called Golden Oak by Minwax.

Here is the same center from a different angle.

The center section is 44 inches wide, a bit wider than the TV to allow some upsizing later as TV's don't last forever. The shelf just above along with all the shelves are adjustable.

We also built a bookshelf in an additional office room of the same material and design.

This is also set up for a TV in the center section which is 36 inches wide.

Saturday, July 13, 2019

Cedar Man Cave Cabinets and Shelves

These are cabinets and long shelves made for a high end garage setting that has entertainment value for the space. Here is one side of the setting.

Here are individual photos. This is cedar tongue and groove with 1/4" cedar plywood backing for the doors except the drawer front which are solid cedar. These are all inset into the face of the cabinet.

Here is a photo of the corner cabinet which has adjustable shelves. and cedar tongue and groove backing and on the sides, with two cedar brackets added so the top can be extended,


© Florida Craftwood

Additional storage cabinets were attached to an adjacent wall.

Opposite this wall is a set of long shelves for additional storage. These all have custom made cedar brackets attached to the concrete wall for added strength. These are fastened with tap cons which have snap caps over the screw heads.

Monday, July 8, 2019

Wall to Wall Bookshelf with Base Cabinet Combination

Here is a photo of a bookshelf cabinet that was built that runs from wall to wall and has two base cabinets on the sides.

Monday, April 8, 2019

Best Of Gallery from Florida Craftwood

I just went through all the photos I have in the file and realized there were many cabinets that should be displayed together more precisely so that clients can better get a feel of what I am capable of. Here they are.

This first one was built several years ago and has quite a unique design. It is also displayed on my Facebook page.

Below was a unit that was built as a free standing piece that was screwed together and not fastened to the wall while the TV is fastened to the wall. This was built to match existing bookshelves in the room.

This is an office in a home near Plant City, FL. It is all birch wood that is stained dark. The design of the home allowed me to take a photo from outside the room through a window that is part of the interior design of the home.

The difference between me and the competition is simple. I have 40 years experience of doing the work. I know a total of 1 quality carpenter who has more expeience in all of Florida and he recently retired. A few years ago I changed the way I design cabinets a bit and started doing inset doors which look much more professional. Back on the older days all cabinets were built with inset doors and butt hinges before they updated the hardware so that we could use hardware that is concealed inside the cabinets.

Here is a bookcase cabinet with that detail although all the cabinets displayed are of this style.

The photo above is taken outside the room in the hallway at the top of the stairs.The design of the home has an window type opening into the room and the cabinet area to the right side is narrower to reveal back behind that opening.

Here is another entertainment center in south Tampa. All remote equipment is behind the vented decorative panels in the cabinet doors middle section.


© Florida Craftwood

Above the baseboard is not run around the base of the cabinet, instead a toe kick style is used that give the impression the unit has feet similar to a piece of furniture. The shelves have not been installed yet nor the hardware knobs for the doors. This unit has a chase for the TV that feeds into the base cabinet.

Below are office cabinet in a sunroom in Lakeland, FL. Shelves and hardware are not in yet. These are built of birch plywood and poplar facing. The holes into the base are where grommets will reside.

The following is a cabinet inside a family room in Brandon, FL. There is a small sink installed in the granite to be used where serving such things as tea, or other drinks, etc. This is built out of pine material.

The following is a red oak bookshelf cabinet that was inserted into a recessed area in the wall that was pre-existing in the foyer next to the front door. These are stained and sprayed with lacquer to a smooth finish. This is in Plant City, FL.

Here's a maple entertainment center that was installed into a recessed opening in a family room that had an arch design in the sheetrock above it. Mirror panels are installed in the back of the side shelf openings with glass shelves and lights above. This is in Lakeland, FL.

Below is another entertainment center layout with a mantel effect although the picture was taken when the cabinet has only been primed with paint. I wanted to add it here because of the design where an air conditioner return is inside the base cabinet right side. This is in south Tampa where older historical homes exist. The doors center have vented decorative panels, the right side is the return air for the air conditioner.