Stuffed and Mounted

That's right, kids. The family room A/V setup is finally complete. The TV swing arm is mounted, the speaker ports are moved, the wires are connected and everything is ready for the install. Woot!

Here's the process, or at least a bit of it.

Connecting the frame to the wall with these wicked 3" lag bolts. Where's this thing going? Nowhere. Note the level on there, too. A torpedo level (as these are known) is a really handy tool for this job. They tend to have a magnetic edge so they'll stick to the frame. The two biggest keys to this process are finding the centers of your studs and making sure the frame is level. Finding the centers of the studs is sort of a neat process. I didn't get pictures of it, but I can try to describe it to you.

First, get a stud-finder from the hardware store. Then use it. Now you're done. ta-da! No, that's not really it. The stud finder will give you a pretty good idea of where the edges of the studs are, but you can't trust it with something like this. If you're just hanging a picture or a shelf or something, you're probably okay with just getting the screw into the stud. When you're hanging a flat-screen TV on a 3-foot arm, you want a damn solid connection. That's when you need to get dead-center in your studs. The way to do this is to use the stud finder to show you were the edges of the studs are. You do this by swiping it along the wall left to right and marking where it beeps, then right to left and marking where that beeps. That should give you the edges of your studs. There are some new fancy ones that will actually beep at you when you hit the center of the stud (we used one) but even then, you want manual confirmation. Get some tiny nails with decent-sized flat heads. By tiny I mean diameter. You need them to be at least 2" long so you can be sure they're getting through the drywall (even if there's a patch or a double layer or something funky). Drive the nails into the drywall just outside where the stud finder said they were. If you go straight through the drywall and don't hit stud on either side (and the distance between them is the width of a stud, 1.5") then you just measure to the middle of those nail holes and that's your center. If you do hit stud, adjust left or right until you don't hit the stud anymore. Measure to the other side of the stud and drive another nail. You really want a nail on each side of the stud, 1.5" apart to be certain you know where the center is. Once you have that, make a mark in the middle of the nails and then run a level up and down to make sure you're plumb. Repeat for the other side and you're good to go.

A few handy things to note: Studs are generally 2x4 boards. 2x4 is a misnomer, as they're actually 1.5"x3.75". Studs are also supposed to be 16" on center. That means the center of one stud and the center of the one next to it should be 16" apart. This is very handy, as it lets you estimate where the next stud should be so you don't have to drive nails all over the wall. This is such a standard measurement that a lot of shelves and TV mounts and other things that go on the wall will have holes specifically spaced to drive into the studs. Kinda neat.

Level, plumb, and now all done. Heck yes.

I'm thinking I may hit up the audio store this weekend while we're taking a break to see if I can find the speakers and receiver I want. We won't be getting them right away, but I'd at least like to confirm that the ones I want are indeed the ones i want.