A common question, particularly when you’re doing up your home yourself, is how to gain space in living areas by mounting electronics such as TVs on the wall. In your mind’s eye, you’ll likely be imagining a perfectly positioned flat screen to capture your attention when lounging on the sofa, but probably haven’t thought too deeply about it, like how to plug it in or get the sky signal to it.
First and foremost, most (if not all these days) TV manufacturers design the casing for their larger TVs to either stand on their own on top of a unit, fix to a dedicated to stand, or fix to the wall with a specially made bracket. A lot of people are concerned due to the weight of modern flat screens that they’ll fall, especially with wall mounted solutions. Because the brackets are designed specifically for this use, you shouldn’t have a problem there, it’s more likely to be the way it’s fixed to the wall that’s an issue. Be sure to read the instructions supplied with a TV bracket, as they will usually advise a minimum length of screw to guarantee the safety of your TV and more importantly, your family.
Generally speaking, if you’re the kind of person to invest in your home entertainment enough to consider spending money of mount it on the wall, you probably also have devices like a Sky box to receive channels, and maybe the Sky wireless router to watch Revenge online, or alternatively a PS3 connected to the web to watch Dexter online. However you choose to do it, you’ll need to connect those devices to your TV. You can do that in one of three ways.
The most discreet way is also the most work, and that’s to channel cables into the wall. That’s beyond the skill of many home owners, so you might need to get tradesmen in to do the job and ensure the wall is patched up well afterwards.
The second option is to simply allow the cables to dangle down the wall, or to put a shelf up next to the TV. This probably won’t be considered a good solution, because it can look untidy, which is generally defeating the point of mounting the TV in the first place.
The final option is tidier, but also much simpler for the do-it-yourself novice, and that’s to run a plastic cable housing down the wall from the TV which hides the cables. You can then run the housing along the skirting boards to wherever you want your Sky box and other home entertainment systems to be. Done cleverly, the plastic housing can often be run down the corner of a room which is a subtle solution for many living rooms.
Mounting a television is something which seems like a daunting task, but with a little careful planning doesn’t need to make a mess or cause an untidy result. You’re trying to get more space than by using a TV stand or unit, without reducing the high quality finish of the room’s decor, so be sure to think carefully about these goals when planning the change.
An increasingly common reason to wall mount is that you’re placing the TV in your home gym, or other room where there’s a lot of activity. As well as gaining space by avoiding the need for stands and cabinets, it also keeps the device away from movement, whether that’s you or a piece of equipment. If you’re running on a treadmill, pedaling on a bike or even scaling the heights on a vertical climber, there’s a much greater chance of losing your balance than in any other room of the house – you don’t want it to be the TV that breaks your fall!