Living Room Restructuring

Part 1: Redoing the upstairs Living Room

So, my wife and I have been planing on finally getting the downstairs family room set up with some furniture, a tv and all the video game equipment so that we could tidy up the look of the upstairs living room and we've finally gotten started on it. Yesterday we pulled all of the equipment out of the upstairs and got the tv, blu-ray player, and cable box set up.

Wall mounting the tv was a f*cktastic experience. Here's some background info:

* My wife and I have been homeowners for only about 2.5 years so it seems as though we're constantly having to run out and buy tools, hardware, etc to complete simple projects because we just hadn't thought to buy the stuff in advance

* I'm not mechanically inept, but I haven't done a ton of DIY home projects, let alone wall mounting a tv

* Whenever my wife and I try do something around the house, there is always some major failure in executing what we're trying to do.

So we clear the space where we're going to mount the tv and then we get out the mounting kit and start going through it (because we have a tendency to buy the product that's missing a key part), and then we realize that of all the drill bits that we have, we don't have the 7/32" bit needed to make the pilot holes for the bolts to anchor the plate to the wall. So it's off to Sears we go.

After about an hour, we get home and pick up with our project. First step is to find the studs in the wall so that we know where to put the plate up. After about 30 minutes of f*cking around with our stud finder, we come to the conclusion that the stud finder is damaged or broken because studs aren't like 4-5" wide and spaced at irregular intervals. So, it's off to the hardware store for a stud finder.

30 min later we're back at home and good to go, or so I thought. I open up the stud finder and go to use it and it's a no go. I wasn't sure whether or not it came with batteries but I was pretty sure it used AA's. I flip it over, open the cover, and find out it uses a 9 volt. AWESOME! Since we really don't have any free 9 volts lying around (who does) I cannibalize an the battery from an old smoke detector and then we're back in business.

So now we have to figure out how high we want to mount the tv. According to the instructions for the mounting kit, the company's website has info on mounting height for tvs. I roll over to the computer and just as I get there I remember that the internet is down because I took the modem and router downstairs to set up with the Xbox and neither of them is setup yet. Luckily I was able to use the site on my phone (their mobile version is pretty slick and easy to use).

After all of this, things started to go pretty smoothly. The brackets were easy to secure to the tv and it was pretty easy to secure the plate to the wall. We get the tv up and secured to the wall and then played around with setting the tilt, which was a little difficult since I have large gorilla arms that wouldn't fit and my wife had a little trouble trying reach the knobs, even using the 12" hexkey that came with the kit.

Everything's set and ready to go and then my wife says, "How are we going to connect all the cables to the back of the tv?" Good question. After playing around for a bit we come to the realization that the easiest thing is to take the tv back off the wall and plug in all the cords. We flip the locks open on the bottom, pull the tv down, plug in all the cords, put the tv back up and can't figure out why the tv won't lock into place. Helps to reset the spring-loaded locks on the bottom of the brackets. They don't just magically do that if they're not set the tv won't lock into place.

Once we got that done it was pretty smooth sailing. We got the cable box and blu-ray plugged in, slid their stand in below the tv and have pretty much got everything set. Everything works great and the only thing that I have to pick up is one of the wall mounted cord hiders. I forgot to look for one when we bought the mounting kit at Best Buy so there's going to be another trip out for something that I need to finish the job (for aesthetic purposes) but we're pretty much set for now, excluding possibly moving some furniture around.

Here's the final setup for the upstairs equipment:



Part 2: Setting up the downstairs Family Room

Setting everything up and making sure it worked was a lot easier than my wife and I deciding how to set up the furniture. Once we got that done I made my trip to Best Buy for the cord hider for upstairs and to pick up some cable ties to clean up the cables behind the downstairs tv. Took me about 20 min to get everything connected, cleaned up and checked. All I have to do is refill the game cabinet and we're going to move a book case from the office down to the family room and then we'll be all set. All in all, this was pretty easy to get setup, just like I thought.

Here's a couple pics of the downstairs equipment:

Mounting the tv part is easy. Try to hid the wires in the wall so that you have nothing but a tv hanging there...now that is fun.

Congrats on home improvements though they are fun, frustrating and worth it.

@puppet it sounds like me and u are in the same " DIY universe" sh1t like that always happens to me , luckily I have a lowes 1/4 mile away from my house . Good luck on the rest of your project, just go slow and you will enjoy it more

S7 SecurityGuy wrote:Mounting the tv part is easy. Try to hid the wires in the wall so that you have nothing but a tv hanging there...now that is fun.

Congrats on home improvements though they are fun, frustrating and worth it.

Rather than hide them in the wall I'm going to get one of those flat covers that is mounted to the wall and the wires run down and thru it, similar to the tower type mounts that have a column on the back the the shelves and tv mount to. We have a white wall and I plan to get a white cover so it will look similar to this:



Our cabinet below is similar in size but it's wood to go with the coffee table, end tables, and dvd rack.

Very nice. I was a telecom tech (Cabler) for a while. So I feel your pain on trying to hide wires.

Updated Part 2 and I'll probably try to post up some pics in the next day or so. Almost got everything where we want it but the biggest thing is that all the hard stuff is done and all the equipment works. It was sad having my Xbox down for a day while we figured out everything.

Yeah, stop being lazy and get some pics up.

Yeah, I just got most of the work done with enough time to get ready for the concert so I'll try to get some taken on Sunday.

We got the last of the furniture set and I took pix of upstairs and downstairs. I'll try to post them up tomorrow since Internet is acting up. I hope the Internet issue is due to local storms and not some other problem.

I just mounted my tv on the wall now i need to get the cables hidden but thats for another day lol.

I did the wall mounting thing for our master room and i still havent hid my wires either. I am planning on running an IR cable from my tv to my closet and putting my blu-ray and dtv box in the closet. But been pretty lazy on buying the IR part.

Finally got some pics uploaded for the work that we completed on the living room and family room, they're in the initial post.

So now that my wireless connection is working better and I can actually upload more than 1 pic in a day, I'm posting up the rest of the pics from the work that my wife and I did a couple weeks ago.

Here's another pic of the upstairs:



And here's some more shots of the view around the room downstairs:







Couple things:

1.) Yes it is a small room, but it has all the space that's needed: room for the tv and gear, a huge chair to play most of the time with the loveseat option if I feel like laying out a bit.

2.) Yes that's a plum chair and a half, deal with it! It's an accent piece and gives the room some color, aside from the color that the tv throws when I'm using the Xbox.

3.) The dog is doing what she does, hack up hairballs she gets from licking the furniture and kitty tower.

Very cool. I have taken the liberty of making some notes:



Pink: Clearly shows twilight books. ... no need to make excuses. We're a family here and we'll all try not to judge you.


Red: Harry Potter books. Well, I suppose that redeems you for having that sparky vampire garbage. However these books are positioned very close. Clearly twilight is more of a 'bottom shelf' item. suitable to go next to the binders near the base. Also worth noting here is the 'mystery cup' sitting in front of the books. Do we want to take guesses as to the liquid it contains?

Blue: Cartman. Ties the room together. Great choice.

Lol at Atrum, looks good nice job puppet

Where do you hide the bong?

The bedroom off to the right of the bookcase is where the bong goes. It kinda messes with the fung shui of the room.

The "mystery cup" is a pewter beer stein I got as an Xmas gift from a friend. It's engraved with "have fun stormin the castle."

I appreciate the couple observations though, Epic!