[adams828]

So I am moving into a single-family home, and would like to turn the family room into a media room.


Currently I have a 50" plasma, and 5.1 speakers. Eventually I'd like to mount a PJ and have a large screen, but that will come later.


What's the best way to approach wiring the room? As far as I can tell there is a baseboard that I could try and run wires behind. I'd like to keep it as low cost as possible while still being clean/neat at least for the short term.

 

[SaxCatz]

For a clean installation, fishing the wires through the walls if the only option if you have traditionally studded walls. This is actually very easy for interior walls if you have attic access. Exterior (insulated) walls will be significantly more difficult.

 

[jpdeuce]

As was mentioned, it will depend on your access above and below the room. If none, then you could cut a groove into the back of the baseboards and run wires that way. Poke into the bottom of the wall where you need the speaker and fish the wire up to where you need it to get to. It's tough to get horizontal in a finished room very easily.


If you don't want to redo the baseboards...you could do the same thing with crown moulding. That way, when you are done, you have added value to the room too. Running moulding on a 45 will provide a larger gap to work with as well.

 

[vmalhotra]



Quote:
Originally Posted by jpdeuce /forum/post/18266996


As was mentioned, it will depend on your access above and below the room. If none, then you could cut a groove into the back of the baseboards and run wires that way. Poke into the bottom of the wall where you need the speaker and fish the wire up to where you need it to get to. It's tough to get horizontal in a finished room very easily.


If you don't want to redo the baseboards...you could do the same thing with crown moulding. That way, when you are done, you have added value to the room too. Running moulding on a 45 will provide a larger gap to work with as well.

Great idea !

 

[guaps]

I'm in the middle of the exact same process. No matter which way you decide to go, do the wiring before your other home improvements. We do not have attic access above our family room, so I did a combination of a couple solutions mentioned here. We ran part of it behind the base board - we are putting in new flooring, so this wasn't a big deal. To get the wires right where I wanted them, I had to cut some dry wall too. Fortunately, I have a friend that patched the dry wall for me, and we were planning on repainting anyways, so it was no big deal.


This may be obvious, but solve your wiring problem before you do all the other improvements because paint, flooring, etc will hide most of the work you had to do to get the wires where you want them...