And we have a TV

Its been a long process but we have officially come into modern times with a flat screen TV. We had a hand-me-down 32" tube TV (thanks Keith) from college on a nearly decade old hand-me-down Ikea entertainment center (thanks Kristen and George). Its been a long standing agreement in our house that if the Sharks made it to the Stanley Cup, we would buy a flat screen. Well, we bought a bigger house before that happened so it was time to upgrade.

Tim and Steve had worked on rewiring the house for phone, internet and cable over the summer. The wiring was done after the house was built and not done well. We have a hole in every closet from cable lines that has to get patched; especially now that the baby has figured out her fingers fit in them. We have been staring at a 4"x12" hole in our wall above the TV for weeks waiting for the speakers, wall plates, TV, etc. to come in. There were several hold ups to the process, like Mike actually deciding what he wanted to order, adding an electrical outlet to the media closet, etc. The TV was delivered last week and then the speakers came. The TV box was huge so it was a good thing one of the garage bays was empty.

We had to clear out the living room of toys which made the baby's room look really full. Maybe she has too many ..... never! The boys were really good about asking us where we wanted the TV centered, the height, etc. But I was surprised when they started tracing out the templates for the front speakers because they were huge! I actually thought it was the template for the sub woofer when I first saw it. Each front speaker is mounted in the ceiling and is 16" square. The speakers are angled down even though it has a speaker cover that is flush with the ceiling.

 They had quite the set up in our living room. Steve brought his own blanket to control dust from the drywall cutting and they were able to use their ladder as scaffolding. Although several times he seemed very precariously perched while holding a saws-all. There is a stud right down the middle of the wall that the TV is now mounted to. But the center channel, needing to go in the center, created a problem. Steve had to notch out part of that stud to fit the center channel in. Mike had purposely bought a very thin center channel and assures me that its still structurally sound.

When the boys had rewired the house they had to get a bundle of wires to come down through the attic into the green room's closet, along the floor under the carpet, under the door channel and into a hole they made in the floor a few inches into the room. That was out of necessity to get around beams, floor joists and what not. It ended up being perfect placement though for wiring the ceiling speakers. You know its going to be a good install when you here, "Right on the money! Oh my gosh this is going to be so easy. This is great, no time at all, " etc. Which is good since they had to spend so long on the rewiring.

At  some point they decided they still need to observe the opening day of football season and plugged our old TV into the wall in the bar area. And there was a short delay when Tim got hit by the ricocheting saw, I'm still not sure how that happened. Mike had to go get a mount and ended up getting one from his parents because they had a spare. Of course the baby fell asleep on him while he was out and the three of us back home decided we were hungry so we also asked him to pick us up pizza. Pretty quick though, the TV was going up and getting plugged in.

So now we have two ceiling mounted front speakers, one center channel and a 60" plasma. All day they were asking me what I thought and I kept saying, "Its huge!" I thought it was too big and that Mike overbought. But once it was all up and we sat on the couch, I had to admit it was a good size for the space. The couches are 15" away from the wall so it does have to be big.

There is still a hole above the TV because we were waiting on a wall plate to be delivered. The wall plate is a two-gang that has power on one side and HDMI on the other. All of those wires that are hanging will be fed down into the wall and attach to that wall plate. We also still have a cable, actually two, running across our family room floor because the wall plate isn't in. Once the wall is set-up, everything will be connected to the other side of the wires in the media closet. Then I won't have to worry about tripping over wires in the dark.

Once it was all up we sat around to watch football and check out the TV. Of course, our TV has an app. All three of the boys downloaded it and were taking turns changing the volume, menu, channel, etc. When we put the two rear speakers in (which are thankfully smaller) we will probably also put two speakers in the back patio. We'll already have holes in the ceiling so why not? Once we do that we will be able to control inside speakers and TV (Zone 1) separate from outside speakers (Zone 2). Apparently we'll also be able to plug in an iPod and browse the whole music collection from the phone (or whatever) that has the app for running the system. And Mike thought the thermostat app was cool....

The boys plan to come back on Friday since we got the rest of the parts this week. Its been a long process and its still not done, but at least now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel in super crisp HD.