Custom Full-Wall Entertainment Center with Electric Fireplace & LED Shelves in Shearwater, Jacksonville FL

The Project

This job is in Shearwater, one of the nicer master-planned communities in the World Golf Village corridor of St. John's County. The homeowners wanted a full-wall custom entertainment center. Not a cabinet from a big-box store, not something that looks assembled on a Saturday afternoon. A real built-in. Shiplap center panel, 60-inch electric fireplace below, stacked stone surround, a wood-grade mantel that commands the room, crown molding at the top, and deep open shelves on both sides loaded with RGB LED lighting controllable by phone or Alexa.

They also wanted a matching office built-in done at the same time. Same finishes, same attention to detail. We ran both projects simultaneously so the family was only displaced once. That's just how we do things.

In the before photo you can see what they were working with: a freestanding media console, TV wall-mounted but floating in the middle of a blank wall, and a couple of hexagon accent shelves trying to fill the void on either side. Nice furniture. But that wall had no weight to it. No presence. The room needed an anchor.

The Challenge

Two things stood out during the site visit. First, the soundbar. The homeowners were clear: no soundbar sitting on top of the mantel and killing the look. The mantel was supposed to be the visual focal point, and they were right to protect it. We planned the layout so the soundbar installs properly without compromising the mantel line.

Second, an outlet near the door on the entertainment wall. You can't just ignore an outlet and drywall over it. The solution: enclose it inside a lower cabinet so it stays accessible and code-compliant but disappears from view. That kind of thing has to be planned at the framing stage, not figured out at the end.

The fireplace opening also had to be sized and positioned precisely in the center section so the 60-inch unit would drop in clean, with the stone surround framing it exactly right. And the crown molding detail at the top had to land tight against the textured ceiling. Not a shortcut anybody wants to take with a foam brush and caulk.

The Build

We cleared the wall completely. Furniture out, old hardware gone. What you see in the early during photos is a wall stripped back to nothing. Just paint, outlets, and open floor. That blank canvas is where we start every time.

Framing came first. We built the full structural skeleton in dimensional lumber. You can see the frame taking shape in the photos, with vertical bays for the open shelf towers on each side and the center section sized for the shiplap panel and fireplace opening below. The base of the fireplace bay is sheathed in cement board, not drywall, because the electric unit generates heat and that area needs a substrate that won't move on you over time.

We used a laser level to set the horizontal shelf lines perfectly across the full width of the build. Floors in older Florida homes are rarely dead-level, and if you don't account for that early, you end up with shelves that look tilted when the lights are on. We caught it at the framing stage.

Once the frame was solid, shiplap went on the center panel. Horizontal planks, painted white, running the full height above the fireplace opening up to where the crown would land. Then the lower cabinet boxes went in on both sides of the fireplace bay, with shaker-style door fronts and the hardware recessed neatly. The upper sections are open shelving bays, which is where the LED strips live.

Here you can see the center shiplap panel painted and the lower fireplace opening still raw. Cement board facing exposed, ready for the stone. The upper framing for the crown cap is still open at this stage. Everything is sequenced deliberately. Stone and fireplace go in last so the surround sits tight to the finished cabinet faces.

The full width of the build starts reading in this shot. Both shelf towers flanking the fireplace center, the shiplap panel anchoring the middle. At this point the cabinets are primed and the shelves are fitted. You can already feel how much wall this thing fills.

Crown molding went on in sections, fitted tight to the ceiling line and mitered at the corners. We caulk every nail hole twice on crown work. Once before paint and once after the first coat dries, because the first pass of paint shrinks the caulk and leaves a dimple. Skip that second pass and the finish coat shows every pin hole. The guys who charge less skip it. We don't.

Before the final paint pass, everything gets masked. Shelves, ceiling, adjacent walls. Plastic sheeting taped tight so the spray finish lands only where it's supposed to.

The LED strip runs underneath the front lip of each shelf, hidden from direct view. All you see is the glow. In the warm-white phase you can see how the shelves read with a clean, even backlight. No hot spots, no visible wire. The strips are RGB, so the whole palette is there whenever the homeowners want it.

By the time the LED shelves were lit and the TV was mounted, the build was nearly done. This late-stage during shot shows the full wall with warm LEDs active, the TV seated on the shiplap panel, and the fireplace bay still waiting for its stone. The proportion is right. The crown sits exactly where it needs to. The cabinets below are clean and closed.

Then the stacked stone went in below the mantel, sourced from Floor & Decor. A light, natural ledger stone that reads warm against the white millwork without fighting it. The wood-grade mantel shelf sits directly above the stone, giving the fireplace bay a clear horizontal break between the stone texture and the shiplap above. That mantel is the focal point of the room, exactly as the homeowners wanted. Nothing sits on top of it. It just lands.

The Result

The finished wall is a different room. Full stop.

Blue LEDs in the after photos because that's what the homeowners had dialed in when we took them. But flip it to warm white, gold, or any color in the RGB palette and it reads completely differently every time. That's the point of controllable lighting. The family gets a living room that changes mood on command.

The TV sits centered on the shiplap panel. The 60-inch Touchstone Sideline Elite Pro fireplace glows below. The stacked stone surround anchors the whole center section. And on either side, the shelf towers with crown molding at the top give the wall a built-in look that reads like it was always there. No freestanding furniture. No floating screen. No dead air on the sides.

That's the difference between a wall-mounted TV and a custom entertainment center built from the studs out. One looks like a TV. The other looks like a room.

We finished the whole entertainment center build in right around a week. On schedule, on scope, done right here in 32092. The office built-in ran simultaneously, same finishes, same attention to detail, so the homeowners only lived through the disruption once. Grateful for the trust they put in us. 🙏

Ready for Your Own Custom Entertainment Center in Shearwater?

If you're in Shearwater, the World Golf Village area, or anywhere in Jacksonville and St. John's County and you want a custom TV entertainment center built the right way. Framed from scratch, crown to floor, with real millwork and LEDs that actually work. Reach out to us. We also serve Fruit Cove and Mandarin, and the whole Northeast Florida region.

Doing it right the first time. That's all we do. Give us a call and let's talk about your wall.