My Living Room Upgrade

[devil1916]

Hi folks after about 2 months of looking at what feels like every single post in this section of the forum i have finally decided on the way i want to upgrade my living room. I have been knocked out by the quality of the builds and the fact that most people are saying they have no diy expericence, So decided enough reading and time to get building.

For a long time i was going to go with a similar set up to elootos and his amazing chimney breast wall install and move my gear up to the bedroom. However being a lazy so and so and the type of person who half finishes most jobs i couldnt face the grief i would get from the wife when i knocked down a built in wardrope in our bedroom.

As seems to be the case with a large number i have decided to go for a yes you guessed it the now familiar floating wall with rope light(how original)

We redecorated our living room last october and went for a red, white and black theme, We will still be keeping the same colours just basically adding the floating wall and properly mounting the rear speakers and hiding the cables.

Here is a few photos of how it currenly looks

It was always going to be a short term fix and as you can probably see in some of the pics i never plastered in the cables below the telly i tried to hide them with a sheet of white paper which to be honest isnt really that noticable.

The tv will be staying at its current height and the floating wall built around this. Ive persuaded the wife that we need to upgrade the current panasonic all in one and also speakers so will be going for

Yamaha DSPAX761 £199 from Richer Sounds
Mordaunt Short Alumni £420 from petertyson.co.uk £600 at richer sounds but im going to see if they will price match
Alphason ABR1100-B £150 Probably from play.com

My computer is sat just through the wall from the photo with the guitars in it and is currently connected by a svideo to scart lead, picture quality is ok not great, there is also a network cable and an mce remote reciever cable coming through that wall, it all runs round the room in the trunking you can see. My total budget for equipment is about £1,200 which leaves me approx £400 to upgrade my 6 yr old pc.

First job is going to be getting all the skirting off and running the relavant cables from pc and also the rear speakers. Just picked up from the post office a 15m HMDI cable i already have a 15m optical cable for video and audio from my new pc and im also going to put in 1 possibly 2 extra network cables just in case i go for a dedicated HTPC in the cabinet. Dont start work till 6 tonight so i have a few hours to get started, Also im off tuesday and wednesday although picking up GTA when i finish work tonight so that may distract me.

[Revaan]

Make sure you test all the cables etc with the amp before channelling the wires. And also, try to make yourself as future proof as possible in case, for example, you wish to have a projector in the future, so also channel a 10m HDMI-HDMI cable.

Cos these little things are a pain in the ass to rectify once you you need it. Trust me, I know...

ps. great improvisation with the paper and look forward to see how it all pans out.

[MiDnight2324]

Hi,should look good when all done,where did you get your unit from?
I like the way it floats and is just what I have been looking for.

[devil1916]

Originally Posted by MiDnight2324

Hi,should look good when all done,where did you get your unit from?
I like the way it floats and is just what I have been looking for.

Its from ikea
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/00045560

I thought it would look good floating as well but just too many wires.

Couple of bits of skirting off

I thougt i might need to make the hole bigger to fit the HDMI cable through but they all went through fine. There is enough room where the plaster ends for all the cables to fit it and im going to use the top of the trunking i have taken off to protect them and cover it with duct tape then stick the skirting back on.

[devil1916]

Finished work at 1am and went along to asda for GTA4 and it was sold out Oh well that let me get on with working today. Got all the skirting of and my floating cabinet and managed to run all cables round and get the skirting back on.

A few Photos

Spaghetti Junction

Just going to get tidied up and get the lving room into shape before the wife gets in. Hoping to get the skirting painted later and nip out to B&Q for the floating wall frame and get started on that tomorrow.

[devil1916]

Never bothered with the painting as still loads of drilling to do, Never got as much done as i hoped due to dropping daughter at school, picking her up and 2 trips in between to screwfix.

I had thought i could leave my wall bracket exactly where it was, after struggling to get it down i thought i better check how much room i have between the floating wall and the tv and to my panic discovered there wouldnt be enough room so i decided to try it on the frame quick trip to screwfix and a bag of 120mm coach screws later and its sorted.

Dont think i mention in the 1st post but the window you see is being blocked off by the false wall, im not blocking it off properly as its a council house and they wont give me permission, Wont look any different from the oustide and the blinds are always closed over at an angle as its too high to see out of.

A couple of photos from todays efforts

Working till 6 until sunday so probably wont get too much done. Ordered a brush face plate last night which to allow me to get the excess cable hidden and allow a clean exit for it. On the equipmet front i mentioned to the wife about 1 cabinet maybe looking small and she was all for getting 2 probably to get all my gadgets and junk put away.

[willo]

Looking forward to seeing the finished article, keep up the good work

[milly]

Hi i was wondering what the height of the space was that you have your televsion in from the bottom to the ledge. Seeing your pictures makes me think that i might get away with wall mounting my tv just underneath a window. How does the viewing angle feel?

[devil1916]

Originally Posted by milly

Hi i was wondering what the height of the space was that you have your televsion in from the bottom to the ledge. Seeing your pictures makes me think that i might get away with wall mounting my tv just underneath a window. How does the viewing angle feel?

There is exactly 70cm from floor to the bottom of the telly and 5cm between the top and the start of the window frame. The viewing angle feels perfect from my seating position as i look straight ahead im probably a few cm below the centre of the tv.

[milly]

devil1916 thanks for the reply. I have an 80 cm gap space to work with. I was thinking about getting a cantilever tv stand but now it seems that i might not need to. I do have other walls that i could mount the tv on but i don't like the seating arrangement done any other way in the room.

Thanks for your help.

[devil1916]

Im going to order the rope light tonight but i have a few questions.

from the bottom of my frame to the top across and down again is exactly 6m, so i need to know how long the mains connecter is or do i just order 7m to be on the safe side. Do you need to order the end caps?? also how many clips should i go for to cover 6m.

Im also thinking of putting some of the rope light behind the tv but it doesnt seem to let you order 2 seperate sections, its says it comes in 1 metre sections does that mean i will be able to order say 10m and split it into a 7m and 3m length.

[devil1916]

Its my day off today got up early and just about finished off the frame, However my daughter is off school today so the park beckons.

I ordered my speakers at the weekend from petertyson.co.uk and as richer sounds had no yamaha 761's in stock i treated myself and decided to go instead for the onkyo 606 also from petertyson. They are just waiting on stock coming in, so hopefully get them both later this week. Also ordered the rope light last night and also 1 Alphason ABR1100-B from play.com. Will see how it looks with 1 then probably get a 2nd one.

Also need to wait for my speakers to arrive to see exactly where i need to put some of the frame to help support the speaker mount. Just going to get some cleaning and painting done over the next couple of days while waiting on the stuff coming

[devil1916]

Rope light came today, Quickly tested and seemed finem stuck the mounting clips on and cut to the size needed. All complete and switch on only for this to happen

As you can see a small section on the left hand side isnt working. I have now ordered a coupler and i had ordered extra rope light any way to possibly put round the tv. My question before i cut out the non working section is, is can you cut the rope light anywhere or are there specific parts you make the cuts at??? i have looked up and down the rope light and cant seem to find and part that is marked or appears different

[davidegee]

there is a scissor type symbol where you can cut. It's not overly obvious but if you look hard you'll spot them

[devil1916]

Cheers ill have a look