Young, uneducated, a very soft person all around. I'm getting an Xbox, I've got a nice record player, a good stereo, and four dope ass speakers for some surround sound. Probaem is I have nowhere to put the things. I could buy something or go to a thrift store. I rememberd this subreddit though and I see the cool shit on here all the time so I figured I'd check it out.
I've been up all night, so usually posts like this go on for a while. What I want is to be able to make something not too big, but rigid enough to support a large TV, seeing as for now all I have is a huge old one. As well as some sort of central area for the stereo, and a spot for the Xbox and the record player. Ideally, if I could implement some storage for my records and games, that would be fantastic.
Point C, A great friend of mine's father is a carpenter, so whereas I am a complete beginner, I will be coherent via a proxy.
What supplies will I need? How much should this cost me? How long should this take? How do I know the wood will be durable enough to support everything? How do I make it look neat as hell?
TL;DR: Complete noob, looking to build something to support including but n limited too: Xbox, Record Player, Televison, Stereo. Possibly Records and DVDs/games. Shit maybe I should get a spot for a dvd player. Xbox play dvd though. Any help is appreciated. If this post is unknowingly bad please ignore. I'm sort of disorientated posting this.
I almost reponded with a "let me google that for you" link but instead I decided to point you to a good resource for DIY woodworking projects. Specifically an entertainment center built by this chick who has amazing DIY woodworking plans.
http://ana-white.com/2012/01/entertainment-center
Good luck :)
It's a very open-ended question. Stability is your first concern, but I've found that regardless of the material (assuming plywood, lumber or MDF), you'll end up with something more sturdy than anything you can buy in a box and assemble.
My advice would be to start on something smaller to get a grasp of building and using your tools. After a couple of smaller, cheaper projects, you'll want to assemble ideas you like (look at furniture sites, design sites, home sites) and draw up what you'd like including exact dimensions.
You could build it out of hardwood, but that will likely require a good amount of edge joining, which requires a lot of clamps. For a beginner, I'd say get a Kreg pocket hole jig, a good 18v+ drill and a circular saw. With just those things, you can build pretty much anything out of plywood.
Some day you'll look at your plywood entertainment center and - along with a thousand other ideas on how to improve it - build it in a nicer, more expensive wood.
But like I said, start with something smaller, and then do this as cheap as possible using plywood.