No, I’m not done ranting about this commute thing. Why are there bus stops every 25 feet? I’m barely exaggerating. I was behind a bus that was picking up kids standing in their own driveways! No wonder they’re all so fat. Also, the left lane is the passing lane, people! My wife told me once that she was never told that in Drivers Ed. What? Seriously, Maryland?
Ok, ok, enough.
If you were to view my browser’s history, you’d learn pretty quickly that I
have a soft spot for tech. Some of the sites I check daily include Lifehacker and Engadget. I’ve been building computers since I was a kid; it’s always something I’ve enjoyed. Ok, stop viewing my history. Stalker.
With that in mind, I present a series of posts on our Entertainment Center. It’s another in a long list of unfinished projects, but at least this one is really close.
Up first is the TV.
It’s a Sony Bravia 52” LCD. The story of how I ended up getting this is long, involves a Mac Pro, and isn’t worth repeating in its entirety. Suffice it to say that I’m quite pleased with it. I got it on Amazon, and it included free shipping... the price was good.
Other supplies needed here included:
- A 40ft HDMI cable. Do NOT overspend on this thing, but if you are going for length, make sure you get one that meets the current standard; which I believe is 1.3C.
- A wall mount. They also make ones that pull out and swivel, but for my purposes, stationary was just fine.
- A wall plate/outlet cover that has a cable pass through. I got mine at Home Depot.
If you don’t already have an outlet high on the wall behind where you will mount the TV, you’ll have to put one there. This is actually a pretty easy job. I had an outlet at ground level right below where the TV would be. First, I put a hole in the wall at the correct height. Then, I turned off the power to the outlet below where the TV would be and took it out. I used a fish tape to run two new pieces of Romex from the hole in the wall down to the outlet box. Make sure you get the right kind of electrical cable. For a 15 amp circuit, get some 14-2, and for a 20 amp circuit, get 12-2. While you can technically use 12-2 on a 15 amp circuit, you probably shouldn’t.
Why two cables? Because you have to put the outlet in the daisy-chain that is the circuit, so you need one to bring power up to the outlet, and another to bring it back down to the box. Once the cable was spliced into the circuit correctly, I went into the basement and bored a 1 inch hole through the base of the wall into the wall cavity I had just added an outlet into. I was then able to run speaker wire and HDMI cable through the basement ceiling over the to the Media Closet, which I’ll cover in a later post. If you will be leaving your Cable Box, etc, in the front of the room, you won’t need to worry about this step.
Time to mount the TV! Using a stud sensor or the time-tested “knocking on the wall” technique, find the studs you will be mounting to and mark them. Follow the directions from the wall mount to correctly install it, making sure it’s level. If your instructions include words like “wall anchors”, ignore them. You don’t want your nice new TV hanging by plastic anchors in drywall. You need to hit studs. Once my TV was mounted, I plugged it in and ran my long HDMI cable to the ground and hooked up a Cable Box. This was temporary until I could get the Media Closet set up.. which you’ll read about in my next post!
