HomeTheater Equipment Rack Trivia

Here's a little trivia regarding the equipment rack.

It actually started out as a bookshelf called "Niklas" from IKEA. I tried to search for it at ikea-usa.com, but it seems to be discontinued.
If you look at the first two pictures of my 'ancient' stereo system you'll see a white version of the same bookshelf (being Swedish, most of the furniture I have around is IKEA).

After I got the Sony Widescreen TV it is easy to see that I needed something a little more 'firm'. Check this one out:

I couldn't find anything I liked out there so I decided to improve on the existing concept. I used the 9 wooden (oak) shelves from the Niklas (32"x15.5"x0.75") and took 12 (16"x7.5"x7.5") hollow concrete blocks, spray-painted them black and used them as the frame for the whole thing, placing the shelves in between them. I put a rubber-foam trimming between the concrete blocks and the shelves to get them to fit nicely without damaging the shelves.
I also placed the whole thing on (16"x7.5"x1.5" black painted concrete plates (these seems to be designed to be lids for the big blocks). The thin plates puts the bottom shelf equipment at about 2" from the floor, and the top of the top shelf 27.5" up which is where the regular TV is placed. The concrete blocks/plates were found at my local "Home Depot".

This setup gives me 9 slots for equipment where the middle slots are 24" wide and the outer slots are 21" wide. Next to the regular TV, above the Sunfire processor, I have room for the turntable whenever I get nostalgic and wants to listen to some 70's stuff. 
The screen comes down so that the bottom part of the screen lines up very nicely with the top of the upper shelf, giving full IR remote control access to all the equipment even when the screen is down. It's also nicely aligned with the width of the 52"x92" screen.

If you look at the picture of my avalance amps you'll see a close-up of the concrete blocks and the shelves.
I'm really happy with the setup as it gives me the space I need for all the components, and the only drawback with this setup is that the shelves themselves have a quarter of a circle cutout at each corner to fit the original 'tube-frame' of the Niklas bookshelf.

The rack itself becomes 96" wide and 27.5" high. (245cm x 70cm)

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