I know, there's a few already detailed, but with the ideas from this forum, I just had to have a go myself.
After getting the go ahead from the wife, I set out my plan, looked out for a suitable plasma mount, and booked a few days off work.
Our living room/diner is long and narrow, and the only real place the TV could go was in the alcove to the left of the fireplace. The red squares are my small bookshelf Jamo speakers.
Except for the the mount and building materials (Oh and longer cables), all the equipment had already been in use and purchased for some time.
Because the TV was in the alcove, I needed a cantilever mount, but the single arm models, appeared to give too much when extended. The one mount I did like was the future automation double arm version
http://www.futureautomation.co.uk/wallmounts5.htm
A local shop was actually doing a deal on these and as I saw it working in the shop, I thought that would be ideal. The other concern, was getting wall mounts for my speakers. They have long since been discontinued by Jamo, and getting no reply from them on a suitable mount, I took the plunge and bought some universal items, and after getting alook inside, I drilled these to the back of the speakers
Our house is about 12 years old, and has some odd decorative features, but we had re- decorated about a year ago, so didn't fancy stripping the wall back and starting again. So the floating wall had to go over existing dado rail and mock picture frame. There was a radiator on the wall, but had not been used.
With the help of my brother-in-law, we got cracking with the frame, cutting out notches to go over the dado rail. The middle cross member would support the mount. Like others on here, I went with 4 protuding anchor bolts. Luckily the outside wall was plaster on blocks.
Getting the frame up was relatively easy, Once the wood was screwed onto the wall, you just know it's not going anywhere. Luckily it wasn't raining so we were able to cut the MDF panels to size outside. It''s just a little harder getting the panel up, level, centred and screwed in place. Once you have one screw in, though, the rest is relatively straight forward.
It was a shame that I couldn't get one panel to fit the whole wall, but a join was required running across the wall.
The next job, was to get the plasma mount on, by drilling through the MDF and wood, taking them off, drilling the 16mm holes into the wall for the anchors, re-attaching the wood and MDF, and then hoping the bolts line up with the anchors and that they all would take.
Unfortunately, we had problems with 2 of them, as some of the brick dust tends to get into the anchors, making the bolts difficult to bite. A swift removal of the panel and wood to clean out of the holes, did the trick, and this time they all held. The mount looks like it'll pull the wall off first before it comes away.
A quick check with the TV on to make sure everything was all level
Then off again to start the preparation of the MDF ready for painting.
Using isopon P38, that others have recommended, I filled all the screw holes, and made good the join.
Holes cut out for leads to the TV plus the holes for the speaker wires.
After sanding, we then finished the day with 2 coats of MDF primer, in between another bit of filling and sanding.
I even got the wife to help, as I know how much she loves to paint
The next day, it was a matter of applying a couple of coats of emulsion. In this case Cappuchino (Focus range).
With the TV back on, and the speaker cables threaded through, I then cut out 2 holes. one for an HDMI plate and another for a 5.1 speaker terminal plate.
http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Wall_plate_C...all_plates.htm
http://www.cyberselect.co.uk/product/93
Getting the speakers on, was a lot easier than I thought, at least after I got over the shock of drilling into the back of them with the smallest self-tapping screws I could find.
The rest of the day was mainly getting all the speaker wires re-laid to the rears, and putting on banana plugs.
Finally, day three, and the fun really started.
Putting back all the equipment,
and then cabling it all. This time I was determined to make it a lot tidier, but I just can't seem to manage it completely. Its certainly better, and I've used a fair few cable ties.
.
Finally, everything was back in place, and I now have a wall mounted TV.
I realise there have been a lot of better ones on here, and I apologise for nothing original, but I would like to thank everyone who I copied and plagiarised for ideas and inspiration.
Special mention must of course go to Groove, who my wife blames for the idea in the first place.
Gazza
You must all be sick of floating walls....so here's another one!
No offence, but your wife looks half cut in that pic - what on earth is in that drink on the mantelpiece ??!!
