Building a Wooden TV Stand

1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Have you ever looked at those ugly black plastic TV stands and wish you had a beautiful bespoke stand that matched your furniture, or are you just cheap like me and buy used TVs off of Craigslist and they just never seem to come with a stand? No. Well either way, this beginners woodworking class on designing and building your very own wooden TV stand can offer you just that. [ [APPLAUSE] I will take you step-by-step through the planning and creation of a strong, sturdy, and graceful stand that will be the envy of all your friends. I'm so called wood girl and I'm a creator in sunny Los Angeles. I've been building and crafting wooden objects large and small for over a decade, and I am obsessed with passing on my love of carpentry through accessible, fun, and engaging classes that will help you tackle whatever project you dream of. I've been featured in Family Handyman for my one woman kitchen remodel and I've been teaching on Skillshare since 2019. I hope you'll join me on a journey of empowerment and skill building as we create what we've imagined project by project. This class is aimed at students with a rudimentary understanding of woodworking. Access and experience using power tools is recommended, but it's really not required. Some basic tools are necessary. Eye, ear, lung protection, sander or sandpaper, gloves, paintbrush or sponge brush, cloth or shop towel, miter, jig or hand saw, drill, drill bits, clamps, a pocket hole jig, forcener bits, and I can do attitude. This is a great quick project you can accomplish in one weekend, perfect for those with limited time. We'll go over the following, planning, materials and supplies, measurements and cutting, assembly, a test run, and finishing your TV stand. So why don't hop on in and get started? 2. Planning: In order to make a stand that fits your exact TV, you're going to need to do some careful planning and measuring. Please note that we all have different TVs and media tables so my measurements are specifically for my stand, yours will vary. First of all, measure the space where your TV sits. There's no use making a stand that is so big, it hangs over the sides. For me, my media table measures 20 inches deep and five-foot-long. I will plan on making my TV stand 15 inches deep. Next, let's measure our TV. Mine is 45 inches long and 30 inches tall. The distance horizontally between the two mounting holes is around 31.5 inches. My stand has to be at least that wide. I'm going to make my stand about 34 inches wide. This will provide a good stable support base for the TV. If you have a much smaller TV, you'll want to adjust your width to around two-thirds of the width of your TV. Next, we're going to measure where the holes land on the back of your TV. Most flat screens already have pre-threaded mounts on the back for stance. Make sure these are the holes that have metal threading on the inside, not plastic. From the bottom of the TV, my first mount sits at seven inches, 15 and three-quarters inch above that is the second mount. There are six and a half inches above that to the top of the TV. I like to draw out my design so that I have a clear picture of how this will look. I'll have a rectangle base that is 34 inches wide by 15 inches deep. These will be made with one by four boards. We'll have two-by-two wood that attaches to the base and extends an inch above the final top mounting hole. We want the TV to sit about 3.5 inches above the base, so leave clearance for that. From that 3.5 inches, we'll measure up seven inches to the first hole and mark that. Then another 15 and three quarters to the second hole. Let's add another one inch above that. If we add 3.5 inches, seven inches, 15 and three quarters and one inch, we have the length of our two-by-two. For my build, this is 27.25 inches. For the base, since we're using one by fours, we need to deduct the width of a one by four from the front and back measurement. If my base is 34 inches wide, I'm going to subtract seven inches, which is the total width of two, one by four boards that are the sides. Remember that nominal boards are generally half an inch less in width than their stated size. My front and back one by fours, will be 27 inches long. The sides will remain the depth of the stand, 15 inches. We'll also put it in a support beam across the center of the stance arms to add stability. We can cut that to fit during the build, but that will be made from a piece of one by three, or one by four, less than about 32 inches long. The last piece of the design will be the supports that keep the two-by-two arms of the stand stable. I like to put one on both the front and back of the two-by-two's for maximum reinforcement. We'll do two 1.5 inch long triangles made from leftover two-by-two for the back. For the front, these will be triangles made by cutting 3.5 inch pieces at a 45-degree minor from leftover one by four. 3. Materials and Supplies: Here are the materials and supplies needed for this class. Aside from the safety and power tools listed in the intro, you'll need one eight-foot length of two-by-two wood, pine is fine. One eight-foot length of one by four wood, a 32 inch length of one by three, or an extra piece of one by four. You will also need the bolts that came with your TV or ones purchased to fit the pre-threaded mounts. If your bolts are short, like the ones that came with my use TV are just three-quarter inch long, you will need to upgrade to longer bolts. I suggest one and three-quarter length bolts. Additionally, some felt pads to protect the bottom of the mount from scratching your media table and allow you to scoot it around. 4. Measurements and Cuts: We've already done a lot of the base work for our measurements. Now it's time to break that design down into a simple to follow cut list. For our two-by-twos, we'll cut two pieces at 27.25 inches long. We'll also cut two 1.5 inch pieces on a 45-degree miter. For our one-by-fours, we'll cut two at 15 inches and two at 27 inches. We'll also cut two triangles at three-and-a-half inches from the one-by-four, which will be cut at a 45-degree miter. We won't do the cut for the support beam just yet. This cut list will be in the class resources for your use. Pull out your miter, jig, handsaw or circular saw and make these cuts. If you need a refresher on cutting wood with different saws, please check out my earlier classes which offer a much more thorough overview. I'll be using my miter saw as this is the easiest to use for these cuts. Make sure your safety gear is in place and mark your two-by-two at 27.25 inches. Make your cut to the waist side of the line. Mark 27.25 inches once more and make that same cut. Next, mark 1.5 inches on your two-by-two and move your miter to 45 degrees. We're going to cut a triangle with the long end being 1.5 inches. Do this again. Next, pull out your one, cut two pieces at 15 inches, then cut two more pieces at 27 inches. Finally, mark 3.5 inches on the one-by-four and cut a 45-degree miter with the long end being 3.5 inches. Repeat. 5. Assembly: Now we're on to the fun part, assembling our TV stand. The first part we'll put together is the base. For this, I'm using pocket holes. I use this handy Kreg pocket hole jig which ensures a good sturdy joint. An entry-level 1 is around $25 and is worth every penny. Get one and open up your building opportunities. Next, we'll be placing pocket holes only on the 27 inch pieces, which are your front and back pieces. We'll put in two on each end. Check your jig that it's set for 3/4 inch material, then check your drill bit and check that the color is set to the depth for 3/4 material. Take your 27 inch 1 by 4 and line it up in your jig. Put in two pocket holes, evenly spaced. Hot tip from me, place the ugly side of the wood as your pocket hole side, it won't be seen. Drill your two holes, then flip your wood to the other end, making sure you're on the same side and drill two more holes. Do the same for the other piece of 27 inch wood. Now set your wood on a flat surface, lining up the top edge of the front piece with the top edge of the side piece, pocket holes facing up. Here's where clamps can come in handy, but you can also just make sure to hold the boards really tight and go slow with the drill so that the pieces don't wander away on you. Place a screw in each of the holes and drill slowly, stopping every few rotations and reversing before going forward again. This helps keep the wood from splitting. If you set your drills torque at around 12, this will help as well. Screw each one in, ensuring a snug fit. Now, place the back piece pocket hole facing up against the opposite end of the side piece, forming a football goal. Do the same here as before. Finally, place your other side piece against the front and back piece, lining up the tops and repeat the process. Now you have a solid rectangle base. Before we move on, do a preliminary sand of your base. This makes it a bit easier to work with. Next, we'll make some marks on the top side of our base, which is the side without pocket holes. I'd like the triangles support in the back to be 3/8 inset from the back edge of the base. We know that the back triangle is 1.5 inches deep, so add 3/8, 1.5 To come up with one and 7/8. Mark that from the back-end of the base on either side. This is where our two-by-twos will be placed. Go take a final measurement of the distance horizontally between your mounting holes on the back of your TV. Make sure you're measuring from the very center of the hole to the very center of the other, minus 31 and 3/8 inches. Take whatever your horizontal distance between holes is, and mark centrally on the back portion of the base with equal amounts of wood left to either side of your marks. You'll just have to do either some really good calculations or keep adjusting until it's right. Since my base is 34 inches long, I'll have marks at one and 5/16 from either side of the base. This is the mounting holes distance. Now take your two-by-two and make a mark right down the center at 3/4 of an inch. Do it on both the front and the back of the two-by-two so you can line it up on either side. Now, line that mark up with your mark on the base with the back-end of the two-by-two set against that one and 7/8 inset line from earlier. Draw a line around the perimeter of your two-by-two. Pull out your two-by-twos, check your measurements of your TV again or keep your TV close for testing the markings. We're going to mark where the bolts are going to thread through. First, make a mark at 3.5 inches from the bottom of the two-by-two. This is the clearance between the TV and the base. Here's a quick and dirty tip from me to you. Take out some painters tape and place it starting at the bottom of your TV to just above the top mounting hole, mark on the tape where those bolts are mounting holes set. Now take that piece of tape to your two-by-two. Start the tape at that 3.5 inch mark extending along the wood, keeping it centered. Now, mark the center of the holes through the tape onto the wood. Do this for each two-by-two. Now you should have an exact replica of your whole spacing. Pretty cool, right? Alternately, measure really carefully and make your marks on the wood. Now, drill holes all the way through your wood at the exact center point you've marked. Do this first with a very small drill bit. Here's where we pull out our forstner bits. Forstner bits are fantastic at making flat bottom tolls so that you can recess the bolts and screws. If you don't have forstner bits, no worries. You'll just need to buy some extra long bolts from the hardware store in order to account for the extra depth of the two-by-two wood behind the TV. Match your bolt head with your bit. Hold the bolt head up to each forstner bit and find the one that is slightly larger. This part will depend on the length of the bolts that you have. If you have one and 3/4 length bolts, place a piece of tape at around 3/4 inch from the bottom of your forstner bit not the pointy tip, the flat bottom. This will be your depth gauge. I want to insert this bolt 3/4 of an inch into the wood. If you've bought a different length bolt, I suggest in setting it somewhere between 3/8-7/8 into the two-by-two. You'll just need to make sure that whatever depth you've inset, there are enough threads left coming through to the other side to thread into the mouse. Place your forstner bit with its pointy tip, exactly where that tiny hole you drilled is. This will center the bit for you. Now, drill down until you reach your depth gauge. Do this for each hole. Now you're going to do the final hole and the two-by-two. Get a drill bit the size of your threaded bolt body and drill directly on top of that tiny hole all the way through the two-by-two. Now test your bolt. Does it insert snugly but fully into the hole? You might need to widen it a bit, if not. Now, I chose 3/4 inch depth because I'm going to add little wood squares as supports between the two-by-two and the back of the TV. This just ensures a tight fit and sets the TV just a bit away from the stand. You can also just use a decently thick washer if you'd like. If you want to use wood squares, take your scrap two-by-two and cut off a 1/4 inch sliver, then drill that same bolt sized hole right through the center and make four of these. Next, take your two-by-twos and washers or wooden squares and line them up with the back of your TV, testing the fit of the bolts threaded into their respective holes. If all seems right, you're ready to move on. If not, make adjustments now while it's easy to do so. Finally, we're going to attach the two-by-twos and the triangle supports to the base. We'll start with the back triangle made from the two-by-two. First line up the right angle of the triangle with that one and 7/8 and set line. This will leave 3/8 at the back of the base behind your triangle. If you've got a steady hand and great aim, you can slowly drill a hole from the bottom of the base into the middle of the triangle, then slowly screw in a screw that is no longer than one and 3/8 so that you don't poke through the top of the triangle. Otherwise, you can do so from the hypotenuse of the triangle, ensuring that the screw does not extend past the base. For either of these, you might want to take your forstner bit and drill out a tiny bit in order to sync the screw head out of sight. Just make sure the additional depth doesn't make the screw protrude. Do this for the other back triangle. Next we're going to attach our two-by-two arms, place them right in front of your triangles sitting in the perimeter you drew from earlier. From below, drill and screw right into the center of your two-by-two counter, sinking the screw head. Make sure your screw is long enough to clear the one by four as well as enter the two-by-two a good amount. Now we're going to attach that back triangle to the two-by-two. I suggest angle nailing into the two-by-two from the top of the triangle. You can do this with nail and hammer or brad nailer, either way. Put in several and make sure it all feels secure. Do this for the other side. [NOISE]Don't be like Brittney. Make sure your two-by-two arms are facing the correct way with the counter sink holes facing the back. While we're at it, how about putting some glue on those supports. Next, we'll attach our front triangle support, place the right angle against your two-by-two in the center. We're going to screw in at two points, about an inch down from the top of the hypotenuse angled into the two-by-two and an inch up from the bottom of the hypotenuse, angled down into the base. You'll be using longer screws here in order to get through more material and into the arms or base. You'll want to counter sink these just a bit, so do make sure that your screw is the correct length to not pop through the bottom of the base. Do this for the other side. Lastly, we're going to go ahead and cut to fit a support bar spanning between the arms in order to provide extra stability to your stand. Measure the distance between your arms and with either a one by three or one by four, cut that amount. I would make sure to place it out of the way of the mounting holes as well as where it won't cover any connectors on the back of the TV. Higher up his best, definitely closer to the top mount than the bottom. Place two pocket holes on either end of the wood and carefully screw the support bar equal distance from the base. Now you're almost done with your stand. Take a look at your work. It's pretty cool. Way better than those cheap plastic stands. 6. Test Run: Before we finish this stand, we need to do one last test run of the fit. You don't want to bring your completely finished stand to your TV only to find out that something shifted during assembly or one of your measurements was just slightly off. Now, is the last chance to make any corrections. You'll want to put some pillows on the ground or set your TV on the couch face down, leaving enough space beneath for the stand to extend. Line up the arms with the mounting holes and threads your bolts through. If it fits, set it up right and make sure everything looks right to you. If not, make adjustments as needed, whether be widening the hole in order to give a little wiggle room to the bolt, reaching the mounting hole, or replacing the back support stretcher with a different length to either a very slightly increase or decrease the distance between the two arms. I ended up putting a small sliver of wood as a spacer with the stretcher support, as well as widening two of my holes. If you need different length bolts, go get them and try them out. If you need to add more washers, do so, make sure you're satisfied with the stability and fit of your stand. 7. Finishing: Now it's time to make this thing pretty. Start by detaching your stand from the TV, saving the bolts and washers in a safe place. Sand your stand starting with 80-100 grit, then moving to 120 then 150-200 for a super smooth finish. Wipe your stand clean of all sawdust and either paint or stain it to your liking. I have a very thorough class on finishing your wood projects that is linked in the class description if you want more. I'll be staining mine to match my media table. This is a conus stain and I like to use a sponge brush to apply, wiping off the excess as I go. You can add coats to increase the depth of color. I let the stain dry for an hour. Then I came back and did one coats of polyurethane, apply with a sponge brush. Let this cure for a day or so. Then place those felt pads on the bottom of your stand at the front and back and sides so that the stand can be scooted around without marring your media table. This can also cover screw heads that might scratch the surface of your furniture. Now take your beautiful stand and attach it to your TV once more, ensuring all connections are snugged before setting it up right where it will live. Stand back and admire. What a beauty, you did that. 8. Final Thoughts: Man, I am so proud of you, you did it. Now you are either in possession or know exactly how to build a beautiful bespoke wooden TV stand that matches your furniture perfectly. That's part of what woodworking is all about making the things that you wish that you had. I hope you've enjoyed this class and feel more empowered to take on whatever project you dream up next. I encourage you to continue building up your shop. Source power tools and wood from Craigslist, pin inspiration photos on a Pinterest page with pictures that inspire your future projects, and please post a picture of your finished project here. I really do love to see what you come up with and also [NOISE] if this class was helpful to you would you consider giving it a rating and a review? Doing so helps others find my classes and lets me know that you're picking up when I'm laying down. Thank you so much for being a part. Now let's go build something else.