We are working with a great rep at Shiloh Cabinetry to develop all our kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and a couple of built-ins in a new build for our large family.

The living room “entertainment center” is giving me some grief. I just got the numbers back, and the lower cabinets will cost about $2k, but the entire upper bookshelves and TV area are coming in at around $5K! This seems insane to me. The cabinet rep says these bookshelves are considered custom due to their size, and especially because of the large cavity for the 60” TV. This doesn’t even include paint (soft white) and install—this whole built-in is apparently going to cost us about $9k.

We also very much wanted to hide our TV behind cabinet doors, but Shiloh actually cannot make the doors pictured (bifold or pocket). They are looking into two solid cabinet doors now.

The unit makes sense for our family. We love books, and I’ll have no trouble filling this 10’ unit with artfully arranged books, art, and potted plants. We also only watch TV 1-2xs a week, so covering the TV makes sense to us. We want the main focus of the room to be the pretty plaster fireplace and a large original art piece over the mantle. We’ll plan to furnish the room fairly simply with two comfortable couches, a large ottoman/coffee table, an upright piano, and tall plants.

But the price and maybe the awkwardness (?) of the whole unit is giving me pause. What would you do?