[scout2028]

My apologies for not responding sooner. I have not been able to logon and after requesting help from the webmaster found that there was something wrong with my browser. It also prevented me from sending PM – my apologies for that also. It’s all fixed now and I can give an update.

Thanks to those who recommended Babette’s but spending about 2 hours at Babette’s is what caused this post in the first place. We went to Babbette’s had very good help, saw a number of items in our price range that were ‘close’ to what we wanted but in the end they fell a little short of what we wanted so we decided to look for custom.

We looked at 4 options:
‘Create More Space’ in Lady Lake uses various pieces and puts them together. They can refer you to someone to ‘customize’ but they do not do it themselves. We did not pursue them but I suspect they would easily be the least costly.

All three of the subsequent companies we worked with were very helpful and developed nice plans: ‘Town and Country All Wood Furniture’ in Inverness, Closet Works in Ocala, and Florida Closet (during the process they changed the name to Sam Schuyler Designs) in Ocala. I would not hesitate to work with any of them in the future.

Part way through the process I had a panic attack from the fear that I wasn’t paying enough attention to the wiring and connection issues in the design. That’s where one of the vendor’s strengths drove our choice. Sam Schulyer, Florida Closet, was very knowledgeable of audio and video components and had made several recommendations for speaker and component locations as well as wiring. The prices for all three were close enough that price had nothing to do with the decision. We went with Sam Schuyler Designs primarily based on the fine tuning of the design to accommodate audio and video.

The process taught me a lesson: There are many companies out there that can do a great job on closets and built-ins. However, entertainment centers, depending on your setup’s complexity bring in a host of issues that may be over the head of the best carpenters. Make sure you provide for proper support of your equipment. In my case, the designer we chose knew much more than I did where with the other vendors I was the expert - and that was the dangerous part.

It hasn’t been delivered yet so I don’t know how this story ends yet. I’ll post the results after it’s delivered.