So can you build a TV lift
cabinet for less than $300? Well, that's what we're going
to find out. We've already bought
the materials, and we're going to use hardwood
flooring for the outside of the cabinet. The great thing about using this
stuff is it comes in a million different colours, different
tones, different wood types, it's really easy to work with,
and it's actually pretty cheap. For the mechanism, we're going
to use a FIRGELLI Automations TV lift, because it comes with two
different types of lid mechanisms. you can either use
a flip-back lid, or a lid that slides up and down
with the cabinet. This mechanism comes with both
of the brackets you need to be able to do that. It's very easy to
operate, super quiet. It can lift TVs up to
probably 90-inches, and you can fix this to the base
of a cabinet, {\an1}or you can use these holes to fix it to the
back of a cabinet. And it comes with
two controllers: a wired remote or a
wireless remote. It's universal, fits with
any TV, it's very easy to use. Okay, let's start by
building the cabinet. Okay, so here's
a materials list. We bought seven, 2 x 4's,
they're like $3 or $4 each, two, 4 x 8's and for the flip-back lid
style cabinet we're gonna make we use a piano hinge. These are $8 from Home Depot,
and then some hardwood flooring. Now hardwood flooring is where
you can blow your budget because this could be anything from a
couple $100 a pack to $60 a pack. This stuff is the vinyl
flooring, because what we're
going to do is we're going to put our TV lift
cabinet outside and see how it holds
up to the weather. And first thing you want to do
is first, you need to build a
frame for the TV lift cabinet, that's
the most important part. That's where the TV lift
mechanism sits inside, and the TV as well
sits inside there. And then it's the outside of
that frame where we put on the
finishing material and it doesn't have to
be hardwood flooring, it can actually be anything
you want it to be. To make it easy, this stuff is
so easy to cut and use; that's why we're going to use this,
and it's also pretty cheap. Okay, so we've nearly
got the frame completed. And it's really just nothing
more than a couple of 2 x 4's. And the size of the cabinet we
are making here is for a 50-inch TV. So it's not a big TV. And so the cabinet is actually
going to be quite small. Whatever size cabinet you make
is really dependent on the size of the TV you watch or how big you
want the cabinet to actually be. So this is quite small;
it's almost done. And we'll add an extra couple of
2 x 4's in the back here so that then we can
actually screw the back of the TV lift mechanism onto the
back here and onto the base. {\an1}And then we'll make a lid. Two different types of lids. {\an1}We're going to make a flip-back
lid, and one that goes up and down with the TV. And then we'll add all the
exterior hardwood flooring, and it's really going
to be that simple. Okay, now we have the cabinet
frame done with the flip-back {\an1}lid using the piano hinge. And it's very simple; it's just
another piece. {\an1}And that fits on the top. And we'll show you it in action. That's how simple it is. And as you can see, it uses this
roller feature that fits on the top of the TV
lift mechanism. And that slides it back but
doesn't slide it back far enough so that the
lid falls backwards. It's just a couple of degrees. And the next one to add will be
the one where the cabinet lid lifts up with the lift mechanism
itself and we'll do that next. But I just wanted to show you
exactly how this rollback feature works. It's very simple; it's very easy
to install and only adds an
extra inch and a half to the top of the mechanism
as you can see here. And we'll install the TV next so
you can just see exactly how that works. So you can see it's rolling
makes it nice and smooth as it closes down. And the good thing with this
feature, {\an1}if your hand is in the way, it doesn't really matter and
nothing's gonna hurt, right because it just flips
back and forth. And it's also a very easy way to
gain access to the mechanism in the TV
if there was a power cut or something like that. So this is a
good solution. The downside is if somebody
leaves something on the top, and then it's just simply
going to fall off as soon as it hits it right. So that's the downside. something else we
need to show you is you can install the TV lift
mechanism anywhere you want. Height wise, we can put some
blocks underneath it to make it lift higher. So as you can see here when the TV lift goes down; it
still keeps going further down and that's because we made this
cabinet taller, {\an1}to be able to accommodate the bracket we want to put on
for lifting the lid with the lift
all at the same time. But if we wanted, we could put
some blocks underneath there and bring it up to probably say
this height and that could be
the zero starting point and that gives us more lift
and we could use a bigger TV. {\an1}But for now, this is fine. And now we'll put the next
bracket on the top and show you how that works. Okay, so just for fun, we added
the TV to the frame, so you can see exactly
how it works and how it looks all in
proportion with the TV. We made this cabinet to fit
specifically for this 50-inch
Samsung TV. And that's why it's kind of a
smaller cabinet, but it gives you an idea
of how it all works. The thing you'll find is that
you cannot see the roller top feature or
the TV lift mechanism from the viewing angle when
you're watching the TV, it's all hidden away. And you'll also notice that the
TV lifts higher than as required. And that's because if you want
to use a bigger TV, the bigger TV will actually,
be taller. And you can get different size
lifts as well, this is actually the medium
size lift for TVs around 40 to 60-inch. And next thing we're going to do
is we're gonna add the fixed-top feature, so that when it lifts,
the lid lifts with it. And that's great in case you
want to have some flowers on the top
or something like that. And then we'll start adding the hardwood flooring around
the outside and to the top to make it look
pretty, because that's what it's missing right now it just
looks like a frame. But this is the basics of
what the system looks like. Something else we should
point out also is, this is where your gonna
hide all your stuff. So this is where the control box
is hidden away for the lift mechanism. There's also a wired controller
in case you lose the remote or the battery runs out or
something and you can just gain
access to that from lifting the lid up. And you could probably mount
that inside here if you wanted or just leave it hanging loose
down below here out of the way. Okay, now what we've done is
we've added this fixed-top bracket, which then when this is screwed
on, and you'll notice the slots
here so this can slide up or down
depending on how high you want it to be. And then you just
slide this on here. And with the screws that
come with it, screw this in. And this TV lift also comes with
this little spirit level that you can add to the top
to adjust it to make sure it's
perfectly level. In fact, this also fits onto
here to make sure this is level too. It's kind of nice to have this. And then what you do with this
is you would screw the top on to here and adjust the height so
that when the lift is closed, it pops in perfectly to enter
the right height, so perfectly into place. So that's what we're going
to do now, we'll add the TV, we'll add the top, and we'll
adjust it so that it {\an1}sits perfectly on to here when the lift is
all the way down. Okay, so we've now added the
bracket, we've added the TV, and as you can see, I've adjusted the height of this
so that when the {\an1}TV lift is all the way down;
It sits flush with the top of the cabinet frame. Now it's ready; there you go. And now you see it's
perfectly flush. Now it's ready for us to add the
lid to it and see how that goes. And we'll give you a closer look
here to see exactly what that looks like. {\an1}Okay, so there you have it. The frame is now done for the
cabinet using the fixed lid. And as you can see, the benefit
of a fixed lid is that things don't fall off when the TV is lifting
out of the cabinet. If it was a flip-back lid, this
would have just fallen over backwards and could
have been quite disastrous. Now, you'll also notice there's
quite a bit of space at the top here leftover and when it's lifted all the way there's quite a bit of space at
the bottom. That allows us to use a much
bigger TV {\an1}for this size stroke lift. This is quite a small TV,
it's only 50-inch. {\an1}But this stroke would easily
accommodate a 75-inch TV. One of the downsides of using a
fixed lid, is that if you would
put your hand or a child was to put their
hand in the cabinet, when it's closing,
that could get painful. Although the lifts do come with
a built-in shut-off sensor. But another option is to install
magnets on the inside of the cabinet lid. Because the bracket is already
metal, so it would stick to it
no problem. And that way, when it's
coming down, the magnets would just pop-off and that would be
a great solution. So the next thing we're going to
do now is start adding the
drywall into the outside to make this thing
look pretty and see if we can
still make a cabinet for less than $300. That is the goal, can we do it?
Let's find out. Okay, so now we're adding the
hardwood flooring to the frame, as you can see. And what we're doing is we're
glueing it on. So first thing we do is we want
to cut 45-degree mitre angles {\an1}on each end of each plank, {\an1}and then we add some glue,
and then we clamp them on and just let it dry. So let's just do this piece
here so you can see how it goes, get it the right way up. And the glue we're using is this
hardwood flooring glue. And we'll just add
a bunch like this. And then what we have to do is
we have to clamp it to the frame until the wood dries. Now, normally, you would use
something like this, which just clips on
and holds it down. But if you don't have any of
them, I have another trick, you just get some bits of wood, drill a hole through
the middle and just use a regular wood screw. Let me just... screw it like that, just to hold
it and then, when it's dried, we take it off. There we go. And then we do one-layer
at a time all the way around. Let it dry for a few hours or
overnight is best. Take the clamps off, take these
off and then do the next layer until we get to the top. And so we're nearly there,
getting there and you can see this stuff looks good. And you can have any shade,
any color, any pattern you want. So we have almost finished, I've
just put the last top-layer on which is what the clamps
are for, on all four sides,
I've just did the top. {\an1}And what we did is we finished
the top edge at 45-degrees so that we can
make it look a bit pretty by cutting a couple of two-inch
strips to go all around the top. And so we put them
two-inch wide {\an1}with a 45-degree angle on so that we can just slide them
on here, we'll add some glue, as well. And that will meet perfectly
already got that one in, and then it's two side pieces. And once they're glued in,
that will look pretty sweet. The clamps have all now been
taken away and we've added the TV and you can see the cabinet part
is now finished and all we've got to do
now is make the lid. And you can see it's already
looking pretty good. And I'll show you what
the inside looks like. So here you can get a closer
look of what {\an1}the top-piece looks like. {\an1}So we've used the hardwood
flooring around here too. We just gave it a 45-degree
angle cut on the outside edge, so it meets up with
the side pieces nicely. And here is where we screwed it in the holder for
the wired remote. That's in case you ever lose the
wireless remote. Still got the brackets
on the top here. And you can see that this
cabinet now is a perfect size
for this TV. And now we're just
going to build the top. And in fact, what I've done, you can probably see I left the
roller top fixture on here, because if we wanted to convert
the lid {\an1}to the roller top feature, all we have to do is screw on
the piano hinge on this back leading edge here and remove these two brackets
and that will convert it to a flip-back lid. But we're going to
use a fixed lid. And we'll also give it some
magnets as well {\an1}and show you how that works because it's surprisingly
very effective. I am now making the lid for the
cabinet and I'm using the same {\an1}hardwood flooring material. I basically sandwiched them
together with a piece of plywood
in the middle and put 45-degree angles on all
four sides and then cut four strips like this with also
45-degree angles. And they will just
simply glue into place. And once they're glued into
place, this will look like a solid, nice piece of wood. This could be any
material you want. And then we're going to attach
it to the lid, but I'm going to use magnets like these rare earth magnets. And I've got four of these
because we're going to have one on each corner of the plate, they have a countersink,
centre with a hole through them. And we'll literally just screw
these to the underneath of this thing. And then it'll just magnetically
connect to this. {\an1}And that'll do two things: One, we don't have to mess
around with setting the height perfectly for when the TV lift stops
moving, that this is perfectly
aligned with the top. Don't have to do that with the
magnets, {\an1}because what could happen is the lift could just keep
going down and the lid will just disconnect from the TV lift once
it hits the top of the cabinet. The second feature that
I really like is if a child was to put
their hand here, {\an1}the lid would just pop off
without causing any damage or any problems at all. And actually, there's a third
reason why we would use magnets and that is if there was a power
cut, or I lost a remote control, and we needed to gain access
to the wired-remote control, which is this. We could easily just pop the lid
off, grab the remote {\an1}and press the up or down button
or whatever we need to do if you lose the remote. So there's three advantages of
using these rare earth super
strong magnets. These are pretty cheap; they come in many different
sizes, even different strengths. And they just, literally just... They're quite strong,
and they'll be more than sufficient for
what we're going to do here. {\an1}So now, let's finish this. We'll glue on the sides and then we'll add the magnets
and show you how this works. Ok, the cabinet is now finished. {\an1}And as you can see, this is all
made of hardwood flooring, and I think it looks
pretty good. I'll give you a quick
demonstration here and what I like about
the fixed lid approach is that things don't fall off
when the lid is lifting. It doesn't flip back and flip
things off {\an1}which is one of the things I really like about having
a fixed lid style. And what we'll do, I'll give you
a demonstration of what it's like when you put something in the way and
the top pops off because don't forget for this, we're using magnets
as you can see at the top here. And so the great thing is the
magnets are connected to the lid and they just connect with the metal
plate that's part of the frame of the TV lift system. So I guess we can leave that
on there and what I'll do is I'll put my hand in the way here and you'll see the lid
will pop off. But the lift will keep going
which is a good thing about it. So here we go. There we go. So you can see this just
literally popped off, which is great. I'll show you the underneath, what it's like and there you can
see the magnets, and they're
just screwed into this. And don't forget we made this
out of hardwood flooring as well so that it all matches. We did the bottom, I did
the sides and the top. And the other great thing about
that is if the power goes off, or you lose a remote, {\an1}you can reach in and grab
the the hand-wired remote. {\an1}And so there you have it. That was a very
simple, easy project. Enjoy.
