Removing built in drywall shelves to wall mount TV

homerb · 05-19-2010, 01:34 PM

I just bought my house about 6 months ago, and the upstairs living room had these crazy shelves built in to the drywall. There were 9 compartments in total, 3 rows of 3. The center section was already wired for a TV, but it was nowhere near big enough to fit a respectable size TV. My 42" wouldn't even fit in it. And the shelves weren't really deep enough to even fit a tube TV in there either.

So, I decided to cut out the top 6 compartments, so there would be a bottom row of 3 compartments to be able to put the electronics, and mount cabinet doors on them.

I was trying to decide whether or not to patch the wall with brand new sheets of drywall, or just use the existing scrap pieces to patch up the wall. Since I can't fit full size pieces of drywall in my car, I decided to patch it up with small pieces.

It was my first drywall project. I used a 12" taping knife to feather out the joint compound roughly 16" from the edges to give the impression of a perfectly flat surface. After 5-6 coats of applying and sanding using a straight edge, it looked pretty good! I got a can of spray-texture and matched the orange peel texture of the rest of the wall.

While the wall was open, I used the opportunity to run the wires up to the TV. I ran an HDMI cable, component, and composite cables. But I should have ran a second HDMI cable up there. I installed a recessed structured media box behind the TV with a blue surge suppressor outlet.

The TV I installed is an LG 55" 120HZ LCD. That wall is so big that my 42" LCD I already had would look small. So, I mounted that downstairs.

I used a fixed wall mount. I tried to find the slimmest one possible. But it still isn't as slim as the Wal-Mart brand I used for another TV downstairs.

I still need to install cabinet doors for the bottom compartments. What type of doors do you think I should install? Sliding doors? Drawers? Regular Cabinet doors that open out to the side? Wood? Painted? Stained? I'd like to get your opinions...

Let me know what you think!