Custom TV Entertainment Center with Electric Fireplace & Floating Shelves in Julington Creek, St. Johns FL

The Project

This one came out of Plantation Estates in Julington Creek, right here in St. Johns, FL 32259. The homeowners wanted a full entertainment center built for elderly parents. Something warm, purposeful, and impressive without being complicated to use. The goal was a design that mirrored one the client already had in his own home: a 60-inch horizontal electric fireplace centered on the wall, a recessed 75-inch TV above it, three wall-to-wall floating shelves with serious depth, and LED lighting tucked underneath each shelf so the glow wraps the room without blinding anyone sitting on the couch.

That last part mattered a lot. These are 80-year-old parents. The lighting had to be ambient, not a spotlight.

The before photos tell the story plainly. A standard fireplace with a traditional surround, a big open wall flanked by two clerestory windows, and nothing else. Good bones. Zero drama. We were about to change that.

The Challenge

A few real problems showed up before we ever picked up a tool.

First: the existing propane fireplace had to come out. Demo on a gas unit with a live propane line on-site is not something you treat casually. The vent and flue behind the existing unit needed to be capped properly. That's not glamorous work, but skip it and you have a problem behind drywall that nobody finds until it's too late.

Second: the client was deciding between propane and electric. There was an existing propane hookup. Our honest recommendation was electric. A propane swap means a plumber, coordination, more variables, more things that can go wrong over ten years. Electric fireplaces from a quality brand are reliable, clean, and the client controls everything from a remote. We pointed toward TNS and Touchstone as solid options. The family went electric. Good call.

Third: tile work was running concurrently in the same space. Coordinating around another crew's schedule is always a chess match. Flooring and built-ins cannot both happen at the same time in the same room. We planned the sequence, communicated the timeline, and stayed out of each other's way.

And fourth: nobody knew what was behind that fireplace wall until we opened it up. Internet runs, vent chases, framing surprises. It's always a question mark until the drywall comes off. You build your plan around what you find, not what you assumed.

The Build

Demo first. The old propane unit and its surround came out. The flue was capped. Then we started framing the new center column. The vertical anchor for the entire wall.

In the close-up framing photo you can see exactly what goes into this kind of build before it gets covered up. Dimensional lumber, properly blocked, with rough openings framed for the TV recess above and the fireplace box below. The TV niche gets built as a dedicated cavity. Media equipment and cabling route through it so nothing hangs on the outside of the wall. Clean sight lines start in the framing stage, not the paint stage.

The shelves went in next. Three of them, wall-to-wall on both sides of the center column, 18 inches deep. That depth is real storage depth, not the 10-inch decorative ledge you see on budget builds. The shelf faces are approximately 5 to 5.5 inches thick. Thick enough to look substantial and to house the LED channel cleanly underneath without the strip being visible from a seated position.

Here you can see the metal substrate going on the shelf undersides. That's where the LED channels mount. The whole point of the placement is that the light source itself stays above eye level when you're sitting. You see the glow on the wall and the warm wash across the shelves. You never stare directly at the strip. That's the difference between LED lighting that works and LED lighting that gives someone a headache.

Once the framing was dialed in, drywall went over everything. Flat finish throughout. No texture, no orange peel. Every nail hole gets caulked twice. The first coat of paint shrinks the caulk and pulls it back from the hole. One pass is never enough. We come back for the second fill before the final coat goes on. That's just how we do things.

The fireplace opening and TV recess took shape at this stage. You can see in the mid-build photo how the center column reads as a single integrated unit. The TV cavity above, the fireplace bay below, pedestals on each side of the build-out, and baseboards wrapping the entire base. Nothing floating in mid-air with no resolution at the floor. Every edge lands somewhere intentional.

The 60-inch electric fireplace. Customer-supplied. Dropped into the framed opening. Linear flame bed, wide panoramic view. Below the TV, above the fireplace, the soundbar sits in its own shelf cutout. The entertainment center functions as one complete unit.

The Result

This is where the wall goes from construction site to something the family will look at every day.

Warm amber LED glow across all three shelf levels. The TV centered in its recess with no visible mount hardware, no cords running down the wall. The electric fireplace running full-width below, flame visible even in daylight. The whole wall reads as one custom piece, not a TV bolted to drywall next to a separate fireplace unit. No base visible on the fireplace. No bulk anywhere.

The LED system runs full RGB. The family can set warm white for movie night, shift to something cooler for a bright afternoon, or run color if the grandkids want to have some fun with it. 🔥

Blue, green, warm white. The shelves read differently in every mode and the room mood shifts with them. But in every setting, the light source stays tucked under the shelf face. Nobody is squinting. That was the whole point.

This is what a custom entertainment center in Julington Creek should look like. Not a big-box unit assembled on a Saturday. A built-in that owns the wall, works with the architecture, and makes 80-year-old parents feel like they're living in something special.

Ready for Your Own Entertainment Center in Julington Creek?

We build custom TV entertainment centers throughout Jacksonville & St. John's County, including Julington Creek, Plantation Estates, and nearby communities like Durbin Crossing and Middleburn. If you have a wall that's doing nothing and you want it to do something. Reach out. We'll walk the space, talk through what you're after, and build it right the first time.

Have a blessed day. We'd love to hear from you. 🙏