TV Wall Mount
This has been a project weeks and weeks in the making. We have a super tall ceiling in our living room, and one wall is an overhang that begins about 10 feet up. We thought this would be the ideal place to mount a TV that would lower down with a remote lift to the perfect viewing height from the couch.
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After getting the TV and motorized lift -- which we will be inverting so it lowers the TV rather than lifting it -- the next step was designing a cabinet that we could use to house it on the wall. A big part of this was designing how it would all fit together in a way that was stable and secure, and at the same time, easy to assemble while 10 feet up. Here you can see the designs for how the cover fits onto the frame, and how the lid is held in place using what is called a "French cleat" which securely holds it without the need for screws, making it possible to remove the lid/cover if we need to get to the electronics inside later.
After the cabinet was built, I mounted all of the electronics inside. This includes a power strip for the TV, soundbar, lift system, and LED lights that will illuminate the wall (more on that last part later).
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With everything assembled, we were ready to put it up on the wall. This was a big part of the design, as I had to figure a way to get these big heavy things and mount them onto a wall 10 feet in the air. That took weeks of preparatory thinking and planning, and then as a result one half-day of actual mounting. The first step in the mounting process was attaching two-by-fours to the wall studs using 4in wood screws.
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Next we attached the back of the cabinet to that, using the L-brackets pictured above to hold it in place while we pre-drilled holes and drilled more 4" screws to attach the vertical 2x4s on the cabinet to the horizontal 2x4s on the wall.
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We then bolted the motorized lift into the cabinet. My son was a big help throughout the whole mounting process.
To make it easier to attach the TV to the lift, we lowered the lift so it was hanging in the air, and we could see what we were doing from behind. Because it was now lower down, we were also able use our step-stool instead of the big ladder. Below you can see me adjusting the soundbar.
Above you can see me adjusting the soundbar. The soundbar is part of a "5.1 audio" system that has a sub-woofer under the couch and little speakers on the left and right behind us to get surround sound. The subwoofer and surround sound connect to the soundbar wirelessly (I believe it's radio waves). With the soundbar I had to MacGyver the soundbar mount to incorporate it together with the TV mount using bolts, a hacksaw, and this Erector-Set-like thingy I found at the hardware store.
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Finally, we attached the cover, making it virtually invisible when not in use (it helps that it's 10 feet up too) so that we don't have a TV dominating the living room and can have the fireplace be the visual center-point of the room instead.
In order to hide the cables that we needed to get to the box, we installed baseboards along the bottom of the overhang wall. In addition, I added in some LED light strips inside the baseboards that can bounce off the wall, transforming the room ambiance from a warm living room feel into cool home theater lighting.
So when we want to have movie-night with the kids, we just hit the remote switch and the magic happens. Check out the video below to see (don't forget to full-screen it and crank up the volume)!
