[kav]

Hello all, I've spent the last couple of months putting together a humble setup in my living room, and along the way I've documented it in the hope of sharing it with you on AVF. Previously we had a corner setup, and here's the old fireplace:

After my wife very kindly bought me a Sony HTIS100 for my birthday, I decided that a corner setup was not going to help me get the most from it. Incidentally, the HTIS100 was a compromise between quality, price and design, more commonly referred to as the WAF (wife acceptance factor). As I said already, my kit is humble by most standards on here, but it meets my needs and keeps her happy, so everyone wins.

Anyway, we managed to flog the old fireplace on ebay, and we began to debate the next steps: how to build a wife-friendly setup on a ~£500 budget. That's where things started to get heated...

[kav]

So, a couple of weeks of arguing ensued. My wife insisted that she wanted some sort of fireplace across from our couch - some old crap about making the room aesthetically appealing, I don't know. My issue was that I wanted to create something like what Brogan used to have, albeit on a more limited scale. She, on the other hand, was adamant that we were building a fireplace to replace the one we sold. This got us into the argument about having the tv above the fireplace, something I was strongly against. As you can imagine, we were at loggerheads for a while, until after a few weeks, I conceded, and agreed to put the tv above the new fireplace.

I didn't do this lightly - I was firmly against the idea of having a tv up so high on the wall, feeling it should be better at head height from where you sit on the couch. However, as always, compromises were needed - some day I will have my own home cinema room and these problems will be a thing of the past.

I started planning, and attempt number three caught my wife's interest - perhaps because attempt #3 was mainly her idea...anyway, she showed me some pics from her house magazines, and I drew up the plans. Don't worry, pics to follow - I know lots of words is boring!

[kav]

The first thing I did was bought a mount to hang the tv. I got it from a supplier who advertises on AVF (can't recall the name now), and it's a solid enough bit of kit. Cost was about £40 IIRC. One thing though - always check the in-built spirit level in the mount against a level of your own - mine was way off! The glass bubble on my mount was set at roughly a 10-degree angle, so any attempt to use this to level the mount would have resulted in my tv hanging like the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

Although used to DIY, I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to working with AV kit, and I presumed that when I hung the tv, it would sit no more than an inch or two out from the wall. Instead it looked like this:

The picture doesn't show it too well, but the tv actually ended up sticking out about 8" from the wall. It didn't look too bad head on, but moving even a couple of feet to either side, you could clearly see cables and the ugly mount.

After hanging it and spending a couple of days debating how it looked, I came to the conclusion that simply building a fireplace underneath and hanging the tv above it was not going to look right at all. I reviewed my plans, and decided that a false chimney breast would be the best option. My wife had her reservations, but after showing her pics of some of the setups here, she relented.

This "tweak" turned this from a two-weekend job into a two-month job in a single-stroke!

[kav]

I built the frame for the chimney breast from 48 x 52mm pine from B&Q - easy to work with and this thickness meant I ended up with a nice solid-feeling frame.

After drawing up plans, I cut everything out to size, and laid it out like a jigsaw puzzle:

The frame consisted of two of what you see above, one laid over the other and separated by 10cm pieces of the pine, and screwed together. Once assembled, I fixed it to the wall and floor using 4-inch screws and a bit of no more nails glue:

I was planning on adding all of this tonight, but it's getting late...will fill in the rest tomorrow.

[PaulieBeef]

Originally Posted by kavanf1

zzzzb

Dammit man, wake up! You're supposed to be at work!

Looks sweet so far mang, looking forward to seeing the finished product.

[PrettyMrHarvey]

Originally Posted by kavanf1

zzzzb

Looking good Kav!

Can't wait to see it finished product.

[Hillskill]

Looking good mate. Might even stick some pics of mine up sometime soon.

[PaulieBeef]

Story?

[dieeasysteve]

Looking good! looking forward to seeing it complete!

Keep it coming!

[Richard]

Looks good so far.

Keep the pictures coming.

[kav]

Frame in place, a quick check to see the cables would run:

Initially I planned on keeping all kit to the right of the fireplace. My wife particularly detests the Xbox, so I planned on creating a secret compartment with a magnetic door on the side of the fireplace to keep it hidden but also providing easy access. I tested for this:

and after a bit of deliberating decided that it would be easier to keep the sub/console/V+ box on the left hand side.

[kav]

After this, 12mm plasterboard was put up to make the false chimney breast, and I added the mantelpiece, which was 4x2" pine mitred at the edges so it went the whole way around the chimney breast to the wall behind:

Close up of one of my tiny speakers on the newly-added mantelpiece:

[kav]

After this, prepared the chimney breast for plastering:

and one useful brother-in-law later, ended up with this:

Now all that was left was the fireplace...

[kav]

The fireplace was faced with 9mm MDF, over which I planned to lay pine timber to give the appearance of panelling. You can see my secret Xbox hiding place on the left - I used a piano hinge and two of those "pop out" magnets to keep the door in place. I was pleased that I managed to get it lined up nicely with the outside edge of the fireplace.

Once the MDF was added, I started to lay the brick tiles. It took us ages to come to a decision on what to use for the hearth. We initially had large slate tiles, but took them back after my wife changed her mind about colour schemes etc. We eventually decided on these brick tiles, which took a couple of weeks to source as there is only one place in central Scotland we could find them! They weren't cheap either - far more expensive than regular bricks. Tiles for the heart and fire surround cost not far off £100 - if we'd used full bricks (as planned at one stage) it would have cost us about £40.

[kav]

A slightly blurry one of the panels being created. I found a mitre saw indispensable during this project - there were loads of straight and 45 degree cuts and it made things so much easier than messing around with a circular saw.

Here's a close-up of the rough build for my secret hiding place:

[kav]

Everything almost done...

...but I saved the worst job til last - filling in between the tiles with concrete. What a messy pain in the hole of a job that is! I was practically finished it before I got into the swing of it - next time will be easier, but I found this by far the most annoying part of the whole job.

I had the tv down for painting, which gave me the chance to snap a quick photo of the mount. The walls are shiny because the paint is still wet here:

You can probably see the wire just above the mount - this is a length of steel wire I hitched around a batten of the frame, and which I tie to the tv after mounting it. With young kids in the house, I'm a little paranoid that the mount might give in and five stone of television would come crashing down, so I have this up as a failsafe just in case it ever does happen to fall off the wall!

[kav]

My wife was trying out a few colours and she loved what I can only describe as a vile, disgusting pukey green. We've agreed it will be green - just not this green. Here's what it's been looking like the last couple of days:

and's here's some of the new green on the right:

That's as far as I've gotten, will probably get the finishing touches done over the next couple of nights, and post up one or two more pics. I am happy with how the job went, but less so with the colour scheme - as I said before, if this were a dedicated AV room, it's not the way I'd have it by any means, but one of my wife's main requirements is that the tv/av equipment are to be as unobtrusive as possible. I've hopefully achieved that if nothing else!

Also, I've been debating putting LED light strips behind the television for a bit of background effect in the evenings - what's the general opinion on these? Do they add to a setup, or are they just tacky?

Anyway, after this is done, it's on to the next job - building a unit to the left of the fireplace to house my AV goodies...

[alz2605]

A job well done mate I love the concealed storage of the Xbox. I also own the Sony HTIS100. Its a great little piece of kit.

Well done again and good luck to the both of you agreeing on a shade of green!

[lukeyy]

Good Job mate

[PaulieBeef]

Nice job, man. I like the way you can hardly see any of the gear except the TV. I'm agreeing with you on the green, though....

[kav]

Originally Posted by alz2605

A job well done mate I love the concealed storage of the Xbox. I also own the Sony HTIS100. Its a great little piece of kit.

Well done again and good luck to the both of you agreeing on a shade of green!

Thanks very much - yeah, hiding the Xbox was definitely a winner with my wife as well. I was initially a bit concerned about keeping it upright, but I download my games to the hard drives now anyway, so the disc isn't spinning constantly.

I was v pleased with the HTIS100 too - the sub does a decent job with the low and mid range and those little speakers can go surprisingly loud! Despite their golf-ball size, they're pretty heavy - you can feel the build quality. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the system to anyone looking for a reasonably-priced all in one.

[kav]

Originally Posted by PaulieBeef

Nice job, man. I like the way you can hardly see any of the gear except the TV. I'm agreeing with you on the green, though....

Thanks lad, I know...what can I do. Like I say to her, I do the donkey work, she does the interior design.

So when are you coming over?

[newstuart]

Looks great, well done.

Slightly off topic but you mentioned you had all your xbox games on the hardrive, could I ask how you managed this as it would save my 2 year old constantly scratching my discs?

[Hillskill]

Originally Posted by newstuart

Looks great, well done.

Slightly off topic but you mentioned you had all your xbox games on the hardrive, could I ask how you managed this as it would save my 2 year old constantly scratching my discs?

This will depend on your HDD capacity. You will still need to have the disc in the drive to be verified by your xbox before it will launch an installed game. Once your disc in inserted move to the "my xbox" tab on the dashboard. Press "Y" on the game logo and you will be offered an option to install the game to your HDD. Each game is around 5-8 GB on average so if you have only a 20GB HDD this may require some management from you i.e only installing your currently played games. The main advantage is simply that it cuts down Lazer and Drive usage.

[kav]

Originally Posted by newstuart

Looks great, well done.

Slightly off topic but you mentioned you had all your xbox games on the hardrive, could I ask how you managed this as it would save my 2 year old constantly scratching my discs?

Are you connected to Live? If so, you should have been forced to download the NXE (New Xbox Experience) - it's an update to the dashboard, a feature of which is allowing you to download games to the hard drive. You are likely to need a bigger hard drive than the 20GB one that comes with the console, unless you only play one or two games. Each game weighs in at roughly 5-7GB - since you only get 13Gb usable on a 20Gb hard drive, the most you'll get is two games on the HDD, and that's presuming you don't have any other updates/arcade games. I bought a 60GB drive which allows me to have five or six games saved at once - I'm never playing more than that in a given period.

One important thing to note though - to prevent fraud (ie you buy a game, download it, and sell it on), you must still have the game in the drive while playing it, even though it doesn't spin and heat up the Xbox/wear out the laser. Considering this, it might not be much advantage to you in stopping your little one scratching the discs!

Edit: Steve put it much more succinctly!

[Naaktgeboren]

Very nice looking setup, good workmanship

I know a guy who done exactly what you did with the 360 and he lived to regret it, without the ventilation it was red light after red light. Unless I have missed a trick here of course.

[kav]

Originally Posted by CloggyNL

Very nice looking setup, good workmanship

I know a guy who done exactly what you did with the 360 and he lived to regret it, without the ventilation it was red light after red light. Unless I have missed a trick here of course.

Thanks mate. I was a little concerned about the ventilation, but I have done my best to minimise this by always keeping the door open when I'm using the 360. Additionally, I have left lots of space in and around the console for airflow, and I have also mounted it so that a good flow of air comes in from beneath the console - the grille at the bottom of the machine is fully exposed to the air, it doesn't just sit on wood. Finally, as mentioned, I have started saving all games to the HDD, which significantly reduces the heat generated during use (as well as making things a LOT quieter). If I still get the RROD...well, it won't be the first time!

[alz2605]

I might be a bit late suggesting this but if you do get a problem with heat, get some of those fully extendable arms they use on keybord shelves and use them to make a small shelf to pull the xbox out when in use.

Saying that I've had my Xbox in a cupboard for 4 years now with, touchwood, no issues.

[kav]

Originally Posted by alz2605

I might be a bit late suggesting this but if you do get a problem with heat, get some of those fully extendable arms they use on keybord shelves and use them to make a small shelf to pull the xbox out when in use.

Saying that I've had my Xbox in a cupboard for 4 years now with, touchwood, no issues.

That's a good idea, and probably quite easily done. Thanks for that.

[signs]

Well done Frank that looks great i'll never forget a picture Jazzmonky JR sent me ,he had done something similar but a bit higher than yours so he used to put his chair on the coffee table to play xbox