HDTV Forum

I want to hang my new 42" HDTV on the wall without seeing any of the cables. It's on an outside wall so I can't go through the wall to the next room. And I want the cables to go sideways to the bookcases adjacent to the plasma's placement. How can I do this? Anyone have any ideas or can point me in the right direction?

Thanks,
Tom

option 1 - use plastic or metal conduit and paint it to match the wall so it's less conspicuous.

option 2 - carefully remove a section of drywall behind the display and behind the bookcase and drill through the studs in between using a special long flexible drill bit made for that purpose (available at Home Depot or Lowes). Install an old work box in the drywall piece you removed, run the wires and reinstall with drywall screws. Since the patch is covered you could leave it as is in case you need to remove it and run new wires later. You'll obviously need to cut a corresponding hole in the rear of the book case.

I would make a hole in the drywall behind the display and then fish the wires straight down to another hole at the base (where wall meets floor)...(If you hang a small heavy weight to a piece of strong string and lower it down to the floor it will be easy to find when you drill your hole down at the floor)...(If your insulation is packed tight, you may need to push a heavy gauge electic wire down from the top hole to the bottom hole and hook your cable to it and pull through).....then run cables under carpet right next to the wall all the way to your book cases and then up behind the bookcase and to your equipment. I have done this and it is easy and fast to do. If you need to go under a three ft piece of carpet, (like where a doorway is) just run a long wire with a hook at the end (about the thickness of a coat hanger...(rubber coated heavy gauge electrical wire works great) under the carpet and then attach your cable to the hook and pull slowly under the carpet till the cable shows up at the other side. Continue running your cable between carpet and wall to desired destination. (You will have to use a pair of pliars to pull up the carpet at the wall)

I had the same problem in 2000 when we remodeled our Family room into a home theater. This one takes some woodworking skills, but resulted in an elegant and very practical solution to having many wires exposed. I had help from the carpenter doing the remodel. We built a small pecan finished raceway along the bottom of the wall in place of the baseboard. ( My idea and wood finish- his sawing and nailing)

The rack with all the components is enclosed in a sheet rock framed enclosure in the corner of the wall with the monitor and about 7 feet away.

We removed the baseboard on that end wall and built a new base raceway made of a long piece of 3/4/X 3 in clear pine finished pecan (to match the rest of the baseboard wood work) all the way across that end of the room from the rack cabinet in one corner to the other corner wall-about 14 feet. Wooden 1x2 spacers tacked at 6 ft intervals with a finish nail gun spaced this piece on the floor out about 2- 3/4" from the sheet rock wall.

A similar 3/4 x 3 in pecan finished lid was made with some small pieces of 1x2 on the bottom slip into the top of the raceway to hold the lid in place with a 1/4" overhang. Lift up and the lid slips out leaving a space about 2X 2 inches clear for wires. We cut a hole through the sheet rock into the back of the rack cabinet for wires to enter the raceway. In the middle we cut the lid into two pieces leaving a slot for the wires to come up behind the monitor. We were laying new carpet which butts up to this new Pecan finish raceway.

It has worked very well, pull the lid and I can get to all the wires which include 3 sets of speaker wires, two 3 wire component cables from the DVD player and HDTV Tivo, two RG-6 for the antenna and cable TV, and several other S-VHS cables and a cable for a IR relay blaster to the Monitor. I found 12-15 ft cables for everything reached from all the components to the monitor and speakers.

Passed the wife appearance test too. She loved not seeing ANY wires anymore.

In your case of a wall monitor a small vertical raceway to cover all the wires could be added.