• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header left navigation
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • Start Here
  • Money Pit Podcast
  • Leave a Review
The Money Pit house logo

The Money Pit

Home Improvement Tips & Podcasts

  • Media Kit
  • Affiliates
  • Ask a Question
  • Spaces
    • Outdoor Living
    • Kitchens
    • Bathrooms
    • Garages & Sheds
    • Basements & Crawlspaces
    • Home Exteriors
  • Reno/Repair
    • Air Conditioning
    • Windows
    • Floors
    • Roofs & Gutters
    • Insulation
    • Lighting & Wiring
  • Popular Topics
    • Storage & Organization
    • Painting & Decorating
    • Cleaning
    • Pests & Wildlife
    • Buying or Selling a Home
  • Features
    • Green Home
    • Pet Friendly
    • Kid Spaces
    • DIY
    • Quick Tips
  • Podcasts
    • The Money Pit Home Improvement Podcast
    • Money Pit Minute Podcast
    • Your Calls, Our Answers Podcast
    • Top Products Podcast
    • ProFiles Podcast
hang a flat screen tv

How to Hide Wires and Cables from Your Wall-Mounted Flatscreen

How to Hide Wires and Cables from Your Wall-Mounted Flatscreen

Podcasts The Money Pit Home Improvement Podcast
FacebookTweetPinLinkedInEmail
hang a flat screen tv
Leslie Segrete & Tom Kraeutler, Hosts of The Money Pit by The Hosts Leave a Comment
  • iTunes logo
  • Google Podcasts logo
  • Spotify logo
  • Chartable logo

LESLIE: So you finally got that flat-screen TV that you’ve always wanted and you’ve got it hanging right where you want it: that perfect, prime spot for viewing, right up on your wall.

TOM: Yes but what do you now do with all those dangling cords and wires? Tom Silva is the general contractor for TV’s This Old House and he’s faced this problem himself and has some tips and tricks to magically make all that mess disappear.

Welcome, Tommy.

TOM SILVA: Hi, guys. Nice to be here.

TOM: Now, this is one of those problems that you really want to – it kind of ruins the whole point of having a flat-screen TV, you know? It’s very clean, it’s very crisp, it’s very modern but then you have this mess of wire.

TOM SILVA: Yeah, with a mess of wire hanging down underneath, it looks terrible.

TOM: So what are some ways to hide those cables?

TOM SILVA: Well, there’s a couple of ways. Basically, you could punch a hole in the wall right behind the TV and another one down below the table or whatever it’s at, right near the outlet, and snake the wire down through there.

TOM: Down the channel of the wall.

TOM SILVA: Yeah, if you have a – yeah.

TOM: But what if it’s a brick wall or something you can’t do that to or if your wife is saying, “You absolutely will not be cutting a hole in my wall”?

TOM SILVA: Yeah, that happened to me, actually. I wasn’t allowed to do that.

But anyways, yeah, there are actually chases that you can face or screw to the wall. It’s …

TOM: Now, what’s a chase?

TOM SILVA: Well, you’re making a chase, I should have said.

TOM: OK.

TOM SILVA: It’s basically a little channel that you screw or even two-face tape to the wall. And then you run your wires into that little chase and there’s a little piece that you can clip right on it to hide the wires.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm. And those you can paint, right, to match your wall color and they virtually disappear.

TOM SILVA: Yeah, they virtually – you’re right. And they’re very hard to see because they disappear.

LESLIE: Yeah, they do.

Another thing that I’ve seen done, if you’re lucky enough to have a closet on the back side, is you can run your components through to that back-side closet. However, your remote control then doesn’t operate as effectively as you would have liked.

TOM SILVA: No, you have to get one of those little things – the wires that you glue to the TV right onto the remote sensor – and then that will pick it up there.

TOM: Because that’s one of the wires that hangs out.

TOM SILVA: But again, that’s just – it’s another wire that – yeah.

TOM: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now, you actually had a creative solution for this involving a threshold that I saw that you gave a reader of ThisOldHouse.com.

TOM SILVA: Yeah, I basically had a threshold that I basically put a channel in it.

TOM: Now, a threshold is for a door, typically, right?

TOM SILVA: Yeah. Well, we used – like I said earlier, I’m a Yankee.

TOM: You have to do it everywhere.

TOM SILVA: Whatever I can get off the shelf, I will use.

TOM: Right.

TOM SILVA: But yeah, basically an oak threshold, I think it was, and I put a channel in the back of it or a dado and hide the wires with that. You can actually make – you can take it – if you have a table saw, you can take any piece of wood and miter the three pieces and make your own without a dado blade.

TOM: Channel it out.

Now, any tips for running those wires safely once you’ve actually decided what your cord-management system is going to be?

TOM SILVA: Well, you want to make sure that you don’t have the electrical wires right next to or against the wire that’s bringing all the data to. Because sometimes, you can get interference with that, so you have to be careful of that.

TOM: OK.

TOM SILVA: So you want to try to separate them, so you don’t want to have the pieces – you don’t want to have that channel too wide.

TOM: Right.

TOM SILVA: If you’re just getting it into a wall cavity, that’s another thing you don’t have to worry about it that much.

You also want to make it so that you leave enough slack in the line so that if you have to turn the TV, you don’t pull the thing out and then you’ve got to say, “Why isn’t it working?”

TOM: Right.

TOM SILVA: And you’ve got to take the TV off the wall, in some cases, just to get to it.

And you want to make sure that nothing is rubbing; you don’t want to wear a wire. So if the TV gets moved a lot or a table or something gets moved into those wires, you don’t want them to rub.

TOM: A little trick of the trade from the radio business: label both ends of your cable.

LESLIE: Yeah.

TOM SILVA: Yes, yes. And another thing that’s very important: don’t lay them underneath a rug.

TOM: Oh, yeah.

TOM SILVA: Because you’re going to step on that rug. You’re walking on that rug and believe it or not, you’re wearing on those wires and you can get electrocuted, cause a fire.

TOM: Cause a fire, yeah.

TOM SILVA: Yeah.

TOM: Good advice. Tom Silva from TV’s This Old House, thanks so much for stopping by The Money Pit.

TOM SILVA: My pleasure.

TOM: We’ll be thinking of you the next time we watch the big game on the flat-screen TV, because we’ll watch the game and not the wires.

TOM SILVA: There you go.

LESLIE: Alright. You can catch the current season of This Old House and Ask This Old House on PBS. For your local listings, some great step-by-step videos and of course, informative articles on this project and others, you can visit ThisOldHouse.com.

TOM: And This Old House and Ask This Old House are brought to you by Home Depot. Home Depot, more savings, more doing.

Podcasts The Money Pit Home Improvement Podcast

Related Posts

hang a flat screen tv

How to Add an Outlet for a Wall Mounted TV | Video

The Money Pit Tips & Tricks text logo with lightbulb

Cable Tackers

How to Install a USB Wall Outlet

The Money Pit Tips & Tricks text logo with lightbulb

Home Theater Design: 9 Affordable Upgrades

The Money Pit Tips & Tricks text logo with lightbulb

High-tech Home Wiring System

Dimmer Switch: How to Install

Related Podcasts

The Money Pit Podcast

How To Hide Wires Hanging from Your Flat Screen TV, Ways To Open a Frozen Garage Door, How To Fix Loose Vinyl Siding, and More

blown fuse

How to Run an Underground Electric Wire

plaster wall

How to Fix Cracked Plaster Walls

How to Install a Pet Door

The Money Pit Podcast

How to Build a Pass-Through in a Wall

The Money Pit Podcast

How to Install a Home Bar, Learn to Safely Attach a Bookshelf to a Wall, Find Out Which Style Light bulb is Best for Your Needs, and More.

FacebookTweetPinLinkedInEmail

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Sidebar

Trending Posts

Get Ready for the Game with The Money Pit’s $1,000 Tailgate Treasures Sweepstakes!

Attic flooring added to increase storage space

How to Floor Your Attic for Storage Without Wrecking Your Roof

Best Garage Floor: Tiles, Mat or Paint?

Garage Heater Dyna-Glo 30,000 BTU Natural Gas Blue Flame Vent Free Wall Heater, White

Best Heaters for a Garage: Forced Air, Infrared or Portable?

Stock your DIY liquor dispenser!

How To Make A Liquor Dispenser | Video

Ask Us Anything

Ask A Question

Favorite Posts

Attic flooring added to increase storage space

How to Floor Your Attic for Storage Without Wrecking Your Roof

How to Get Rid of Thousand-Leggers Without Getting Grossed Out

Get Ready for the Game with The Money Pit’s $1,000 Tailgate Treasures Sweepstakes!

Best Garage Floor: Tiles, Mat or Paint?

Popular Podcasts

Repair Crumbling Cinder Block

Electric Meter

Service Entry Cable and Electric Meter: Who is responsible for repair?

dirt to use around house foundation

Type of Dirt to Use Around House Foundation

What Smells Like Burning Rubber in My Home?

Newsletter

Get weekly updates with the latest tips and tricks to save money in your home.

As Us Anything

Ask A Question

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • About
  • Media Kit
  • Partners
  • Posts
  • Endorsement Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy & Solution
  • Radio Stations

Copyright © 2001–2023 · The Money Pit · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Mai Theme

Ask A Question