We have a wall that has bothered me since we bought the house.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/183/409450866_cf4d5e9e2b_m.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/amesenbrink/409450866/)

The mantle was done poorly, the TV is to high and other problems. We are going to tile the wall, and fill in the hole where the TV is sitting.

I would like to mount the TV above the fireplace. We don't use the fireplace much, and there is a blower on the fireplace so I'm not real worried about the heat issue. Where do I put the DVD player?

The wall to the left has a large credenza, I could attempt to fish the cable feed and place the TV on the credenza if mounting the TV over the fireplace isn't possible. I could also try to run an HDMI and component cable through the wall and just set the DVD player on the credenza.

Should I just hang the TV and forget the DVD player? This is our everyday TV, and I have a projection theater in the basement so we don't watch many movies in this room but I would like to have a DVD player connected.

Thoughts, other ideas or comments welcome. Thanks.

Maybe it seems too simple, but why dont you build a rack where the TV currently is? You could house the DVD player and all kinds of other stuff... build some shelves and tile around them. Hang the TV lower and fish the cables through the wall.

Seems logical to me, maybe I'm missing something?

Edit: Gotta agree with you,that's a pretty bad wall as it is. :eek:

Our first thought was leave a small opening above where the TV would be mounted. Just enough room for a DVD player and a set top box. That shelf would be 7' high, fine for me but a reach for my wife, plus we need to figure out what we will do with the tile around the opening.

My wife says skip the DVD player. While we don't use the DVD player every day I think we would miss it if it wasnt there.

We thought about just not putting the TV on this wall, or mounting the TV on the wall and running wires for the components to a rack, or our credenza.

I just wanted some other ideas, input, or advice.

I'm with you, I think that you would miss the DVD player, even if it's not your "main" TV. I like the looks of a "TV only" over the fireplace, if you're ambitious enough running HDMI to the credenza and storing the player in there, I think that would be ideal. I don't know how to run it inside the wall, you could always go with a paintable raceway to hide the wires.

Edit: If your wife says skip the DVD player, does it really matter if you can reach it and she cant? :p

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/425514519_1062ae2b7b_m.jpg
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/amesenbrink/425514519/)

Well we did it. We decided to use a shelf/slot above the TV for the DVD player, I think it turned out great. We still need to grout the tile so it's going to look even better when it's done.

Looks really good!