Hung a TV on rock fireplace and created a media closet.

3,229 Views | 9 Replies | Last: 7 yr ago by LGAggie
LGAggie
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AG
I took photos as I went. Figured y'all might get a kick out of them.

Before Fireplace



Before Closet




Our house was built in 2010. It had 110v and coax/ethernet run down the chase between the fireplace flue pipe and the masonry. That made life a LOT easier. Also making life easy was my attic. It's got plenty of room and where I was working even happened to be decked. The plan was to put the components in a closet adjacent to the fireplace. All the coax and cat cables from all over the house terminate here. Well, they are all run here; none are terminated. I planned to get the picture via HDMI and control everything with an IR extender using our Harmony 650 remote.

I had to pull new cables down to the tv (more on that below) so I opened up the coax box and drilled through it. Behind that box, I found another box mounted to the stud wall behind the rock facade. I (gently)drilled through that box too until I could see to the chase. It's ragged but it worked.



Next I cut out for the new low voltage boxes in the closet. I needed a double gang for all the surround speaker connections and an additional single for all the misc. other connections. The existing single gang had coax and ethernet terminated in it.



I mounted a simple tilting mount using Tapcon masonry screws (that work great btw). The mount was purchased on Amazon. I originally bought everything on Monoprice, but I misread the description of the mount I bought and it wouldn't work for my old plasma. The mount I ended up with is actually really nice. It tilts up and down 15 degrees. The ability to tilt up made making the connections MUCH easier. I pulled all the wires down the fireplace. I ended up pulling:

1 HDMI
2 3.5 mm audio cables (1 for the IR extender and 1 for a Bluetooth audio receiver)
1 speaker wire for the center speaker
1 coax (already there)
1 cat 5 (already there)
1 optical cable



Closet progress



Closet mostly done



TV and center speaker hung



The only problem I really ran into was caused by my own stupidity. I mounted an antenna on the roof and ran the coax all the way down inside the closet, terminations done and everything, before I realized it had to go to the TV. The tuner is in the TV... I'm just learning as I go. So, I redid the attic wiring so the antenna coax goes to the TV. Then I had to pull the optical back from the TV to the media closet so our over the air stuff will go through the surround receiver. That means I have 7 cables and only 6 keystone spaces. I really wanted everything terminated so it looked professional but I guess I'm just going to remove 1 of the keystone jacks and run 2 cables through it loose. Sucks, but I'm not going to get a double gang box in that rock.

Essay finished!
Whitetail
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AG
Looks great. What size of TV is that?
LGAggie
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AG
50"
Señor Chang
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AG
Looks good. I like the stone on your fireplace.
agdoc2001
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AG
Center channel should be at ear level. Could you place it beneath the tv?
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LGAggie
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AG
It's an imperfect solution in an imperfect situation. I was trying to keep the tv low as possible. I know it's not an ideal viewing height, but our living loom just doesn't work well with the tv anywhere else. My center speaker didn't look right hanging below the tv. It's angled down though. It's front face is basically parallel to the viewers' faces. That's got to help right?

I'll say this. The dialog is MUCH easier to understand now. We had the center speaker in an entertainment cabinet before. I guess it was because it was kind of in a cubby, but we had to turn it up uncomfortably loud to understand quiet dialog.
Satellite of Love
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I like the stone, but builders really need to stop putting the fireplace in the center. I today's world, the TV is the focal point. Put the fireplace out of the way.
LGAggie
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AG
agreed...
62strat
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AG
Satellite of Love said:

I like the stone, but builders really need to stop putting the fireplace in the center. I today's world, the TV is the focal point. Put the fireplace out of the way.
It's weird we built a new house, and the plan showed fireplace right on the wall where tv should obviously go. We found out a bit into the build that they don't do it like that, they put the fireplace in the corner.

It's like they actually caught on.
agchino
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AG
Can you not run the Antenna audio of the HDMI from the TV to the receiver?

That is what I do on mine, you may have to enable the correct option either on your receiver, or TV.
LGAggie
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AG
I'll play with the settings tonight. My tv is almost 10 years old though.
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