Looking for ideas, experience, etc.

[dadiOH]

I'm working on plans for a cabinet I am going to build into a niche between two rooms. The space for the cabinet horizontally is like this (VP= 3/4" vertical partition)

left 11" VP center left 6 3/4" VP center (for TV) 39 1/2" VP center right 6 3/4" VP right 11"

For a total of 78"

The center and two outside compartment widths have to be at least what they are now; the left & right center widths are fudgeable as they are for CD/DVD jewel cases.

The entire front is to be enclosed with doors. The horizontal space for the doors is 76 1/2 which allows a 3/4 overlap on the interior space for each face frame stile. The height of the doors will be 39 1/2 +- __________________________

My intent - before drawing it out - was to use four sliding doors. There is plenty of space in front of the partitions for sliders. Problem is, there is no way I can figure for four sliding doors to cover the interior space but allow the center ones to be slid open and allow full view of the TV compartment.

I thought about using six doors; getting pretty narrow...the narrower they are the more chance of them binding when pushed. I could use five to make them a bit wider.

I also thought about a fold down and slide in door in the front of the TV compartment. That compartment is 28' high and there is another compartment

10 1/2 inches high under its support shelf. I'm thinking about something like a barrister door but flop down rather than up. When flipped and pushed in, a door like that would project outward from the cabinet front by 4-6" as the available depth is 24" max.; I don't see that as a huge problem, more like an impetus to close the door :) There is no room for side flip doors.

And lastly, I could always use four regular old hinged doors. I may wind up doing that but wanted to get the thoughts of you guys and - hopefully - the benefit of your experience.

[dpb]

On 6/6/2013 11:20 AM, dadiOH wrote: ...

It would sacrifice some of the width on the sides but I'd suggest the slide-in along the side hardware intended for the purpose.

Woodworker's Hardware if you don't have local supplier of such things. WWH is good folk to deal with if you haven't...

[Sonny]

de-in along the side hardware intended for the purpose. Woodworker's Hardwa re if you don't have local supplier of such things. WWH is good folk to deal with if you haven't... --

Pivot door slides on dpb's link.

I have them on a cabinet, but I didn't make the cabinet, hence buy or insta ll the slides. You'll need the slide for your specific door thickness and face fitting. Karl, Leon, Robert, etc. can likely advise best how to selec t the proper slide for your specific needs.

Sonny

[Lee Michaels]

Two thoughts;

If you wanted to use sliding doors, go to a wider track and make the doors thicker. That should take care of the binding problem.

And in a similar configuration as the above cabinet, I have seen a roll top used to cover the TV. The only problem there is that when the roll top is raised, that there be enough circulation in the cabinet so the TV doesn't overheat. It wouldn't take that much to do that. A couple vent holes, etc. Besides, modern flat panel TV's do not put out the heat that the old CRT TV's did. Any way, I have seen this approach used twice. And it was very good looking. A lot of curious people just had to lift the roll top just to see what was behind it.

Any way, roll tops are readily available and can be quite attractive when finished well.

[John Grossbohlin]

How about doors on the two outside spaces and create slide out pantry type units for the left and right center spaces. For example

Do you have room for a slide up (or down) door in the center? You'd need a deep cabinet to hide a barrister type door...

John

[dadiOH]

-

Thanks, I had forgotten about rolltops. Certainly a possibility.

dadiOH

[dadiOH]

Yes, I could do that easily but I'm missing how doing so would provide extra sliding space for the center doors. Could you explain a bit?

Straight up or down, no. Fold down or up and then in, yes; and either would stick out 4-6" which doesn't bother me terribly.

dadiOH

[John Grossbohlin]

Sliding doors in front to cover the whole thing... when they are open the other doors/drawers could be closed for neatness or opened for access.

Pocket doors that open out like hinged doors and then slide in along the sides of the TV.

Or, as you had suggested, the barrister type doors (if you have enough depth).

[Greg Guarino]

Perhaps I'm not visualizing this correctly, but it seems to me that each "wing" will be almost exactly half the width of the tv space. I envision 4 equal width sliding doors on two tracks. When watching TV, the TV doors would slide in front of the two "wing" doors. When not watching TV, you'd slide the "wing" doors behind the TV doors to access the stuff in the wings. You's have to make those doors stop a little short of going completely behind the TV doors so you'd have something to grab to close them, but I think it's doable.

[Greg Guarino]

This is what I mean (got to practice my Sketchup, they tell me)

Use the right arrow to see 3 views

[Bill]

I like your idea. The picture at the following link suggests other possibilities.

Interesting problem!

Bill

[dadiOH]

That was, indeed, the desire. The problem is that width of the TV compartment is greater than 2x the width of the "wing" compartment. Which means that the TV doors could never slide apart enough to totally expose their compartment.

The only sliding solutions I can think of are to use five or more doors

- OR - make the TV door into a horizontal tambour.

Actually, the tambour isn't all that bad. I have a depth limitation but the complete door wouldn't have to be tambour...each TV door has to be

20" plus wide but I am shy about 2-3" of sliding space for each door. Therefore, make each one solid for, say, 15-16" and put a vertical tambour strip at each end to give me enough width to cover the compartment. Slide them open and the tambour ends wrap around into the depth of the cabinet. Or, just make the whole door tambour.

That's doable, off to the drawing board :)

dadiOH

[Greg Guarino]

Is 78" the entire available width? You'd only need a couple more inches to make it work with 4 doors.

[dadiOH]

But they aren't and therein lies the problem.

Each wing from the end is...

11" compartment 3/4 partition 6 3/4" compartment 3/4 partition between 6 3/4 compartment and TV

That's a total of 19 1/4. Close but close doesn't count here, only in horse shoes and grenades.

Even if they *were* half the TV area size, it still wouldn't work because the left/right doors and TV doors should overlap each other by at least 1/2".

Yeah, I know :(

Actually, I could get about 3 1/2" more at each side *IF* I wanted to rip off some drywall, move some studs, put back new DW, tape it, texture it and prime and paint. I don't. The tambour should work out OK.

dadiOH

[Greg Guarino]

Ah. That's the part I didn't get. 78" is your maximum space.

[Walusimbi & Co.]

If you wanted to use sliding doors, go to a wider track and make the doors thicker. That should take care of the binding problem.