I have been with my husband since we were in high school, which has been a long time; I will just leave it at that! Ever since we have been together and we would walk into a store, I would lose him to the television section very quickly. Do not get me wrong; the man has a 46-inch television, but apparently, that was too small for his football games. I constantly hear about how he needed at least a 60-inch television.
This year I decided to suck it up and buy him a television on black Friday, so I could at least save a good amount of money. I found a great deal on a television that I knew he would love and went for it.
Only problem was I did not like the visual of this huge television sitting on my console table. So naturally, I bought a wall mounting kit and wire management kit. If a television is placed on a wall and the cords are going to be run behind the wall, a wire management kit must be bought for it to be up to code.
Items needed :
Wall mounting kit of your choice
Pencil
Level
Stud finder
Cord management system (we used the Sanus brand and it is $99 at hhgregg)
Drill
Box cutter
Hammer
First, figure out the location of where the television will sit on the wall. In our case, the wall was 95 inches long and the television width measured to be 54 inches. Television sizes measure diagonally, so the width will be different then what the television size is. Since our wall was 95 inches and the television width is 54 we knew we needed 20.5 inches on each side of the television for it to sit in the center of the wall.
Once the center of the wall has been located, the studs will need to be marked. The mounting system needs to be directly in the studs; otherwise, you deal with the possibility of the television falling off the wall. Once a stud is located, finding the next stud should be easy. If the house is built to code, they should be 16 inches apart, from the center of one stud to the center of the next. This is called “16 inches on the center,” and the studs are 2x4s, so they will be exactly 1.5’’ wide.
After you have located the studs mark them with a pencil and hold up the mounting bracket. Mark the location of where the bolts will be going while using the level to make sure the bracket is sitting even. Now remove the bracket and drill a pilot hole in the center of your bolt markings. Afterwards, put the bracket back up and bolt your mounting system to the wall. Do not forget to double, or even triple check to make sure everything is even with your level.
With the mounting system up and ready to go it is time to focus on the wire management system. The first hole that will need to be cut out for this will be going in the middle of the mounting bracket. Most likely, the wiring system will provide a template for cutting the perfect size hole. Use this template. We used a box cutter to cut around the template and then hit it with the hammer. The piece of drywall is easily removed this way.
Drop down to about a foot above the top of your trim along the floor and proceed to cut the second hole for the wire system. Afterwards, you will be ready to drop all the wires through the top box down to the bottom one. Plug your cords up and you are ready to go. Using Fisher steel tape can be a great help in dropping the cords down, if you wish to use it. We did not use anything, but this was not the first time we had run cords through the wall.
The cost of this project minus the television will run anywhere from $100 to $250 dollars, with the mounting system and wire management system. Honestly though, seeing the monstrosity of cords behind my console table for years had given me a permanent eye twitch, so it is completely priceless in my opinion.
If you just follow the directions on both of the systems you should be okay; just do not take any shortcuts. The last thing you want to worry about is to be watching television and have it fall off the wall.
If you have any further questions or need help feel free to email me!
April Sherrill is a staff writer for the Hamilton County Herald. Contact her at april@dailydata.com.