Materials: Alex Drawer Unit (40196241) & AVSIKT Roll-front cabinet (#00158439)
Description: I have for a long time wanted to have an old style credenza with modernist influences. I though the Alex file cabinets were very elegant and often overlooked so i wanted to utilize them for this hack. The Alex file cabinets were however, too tall to make a sleek and modernist credenza, so in order to make it work i had to chop off the two bottom drawers and shorten the height of that product all together. Then, once that was done for both cabinets the fun began.
The AVSIKT Roll-front cabinet was perfect for my purposes since it had a beautiful roll front with a metallic finish - the roll front is actually really sturdy so even when i decided to flip the AVSIKT Roll-front cabinet so that the roll front was on the top, it can still actually hold pretty heavy objects (including a flat screen TV if necessary).
With the AVSIKT Roll-front cabinet, however, the depth and "height" was smaller than the Alex cabinets, therefore two pieces of plywood (1/2 in thick) had to be placed on each side. This actually helped strengthen the credenza, however, it did require me to veneer the surface once all the pieces were attached.
Once the pieces were secure to each other using wooden screws, I veneered the plywood pieces with a nice Maple veneer and gave it a couple of light clear coats to preserve the natural color.
The final touches were getting the legs from Home Depot (or your local hardware store, they cost about $2 a piece) and mount them on the bottom and painting them black. I opted for an arrangement of 3 legs in a triangular fashion on each side - I think that works best since the piece is quite heavy (actually, it is really heavy so lift with partner if possible).
I was happy that my vinyl record player fit the compartment in the AVSIKT Roll-front cabinet and i build a little shelf with the spare drawers parts from the Alex cabinet - underneath it is the speaker and wiring, all hidden from sight. I have many pictures of the process but can't supply them all at the same time on the site, if needed please let me know and i'll share them right away!
~ Mark Soares, Connecticut
