What do you get when you add two bumbling buffoons, a pile of hand tools, instructions with a disclaimer written so small you can't read it without a microscope, a TV mount that's a hunk of junk and a 95 pound plasma television...oh, and of course, a perfectly smooth, newly painted wall? *Sigh*
We finally bought a TV for the basement. It was exciting...but handing over the money was the easy part. From there on out, it's been one stupid mistake after another:
1. We had to go back the next day to pick the TV up from RC Willey. Little did we know that plasma TVs cannot travel lying down. Never mind the fact that it barely fit in the back of the suburban in an upright position, but guess who got to ride in the back and hold it up the whole way home? That would be me. It wasn't so bad until we went over a bump or turned a corner...or started moving.
2. Naturally, we needed a cabinet for the TV to sit on/hold all the components. We searched all over and I finally found exactly what I was looking for at IKEA. We called home to have the kids measure the base of the TV to make sure it would fit and, according to the measurements, we were good to go. We bought it, brought it home, had it about 3/4 of the way put together when I looked at the TV, back to the cabinet, back to the TV and realized that it was almost exactly the same size. It had been measured wrong. The excuse? "Well, it was hard to measure because the TV was in the way". *Sigh*
3. Switch to mounting the TV on the wall. We went to Costco (because they sell good quality merchandise...most of the time) and bought a mount that fit the specifications of our TV. Following all the instructions to the letter, we got it on the wall. Unfortunately, the TV would not stay in an upright position no matter how hard we tried. Every time we let go it would slowly shift forward again. That's when (a little too late) we went looking at reviews and found out the thing was nothing but trash. One person even commented that they would hear the TV tilting forward in the middle of the night and many people said the lag bolts had broken. I had nightmares of my brand new TV crashing to the floor in the middle of the night. Needless to say, we took it off and returned the mount to Costco. (It could have been much worse--one guy spent 5 hours digging broken lag bolts out of his wall--at least we didn't have that problem)
4. Still in need of a mount, we decided to go straight to Best Buy, where we talked to a very helpful salesperson that sent us in the right direction and assured us that the mount he recommended would hold our very heavy television. It was almost twice the price as the one at Costco, but we realized we didn't want to skimp and risk having the TV fall, so we bought it. As soon as we had the brackets securely attached to the TV, I said "Maybe we should read some reviews before we punch more holes in the wall." The good news is the mount got GREAT reviews. The bad news? It was a third of the price on Amazon and EVERYONE remarked about how they had returned the one they bought at Best Buy and ordered online. I didn't really feel like wasting $110 so I ordered one.
5. Time to hang the TV. The company's website had a "height finder" tool and all you had to do was tell it how high off the ground you wanted it and it would tell you where to drill the holes. So we plugged in the numbers and Patrick started drilling. Everything went smoothly and the time came to hang the TV. It was heavy and hard, but the mount was great. It went up, locked in place, and we laid back on the carpet to admire our work when Patrick happened to glance over at the cabinet and realize somewhere along the line our measurements were all screwed up and the TV was lower than the top of the cabinet. Not only that, but it was just plain TOO LOW. Who wants to turn on Just Dance and have to look DOWN at the television?! Apparently someone had failed to notice the disclaimer (that would be me) that said the measurements were based on the brackets being exactly in the middle of the TV. Oops. It was midnight so it was staying there at least one more day. There was nothing I could do but lay on the floor and laugh about it. Dylan just sat there saying "I don't know why you think this is funny."
6. It took Colby an entire day to say "why'd you hang the TV so low?" Ha ha...
7. That mount was better than we expected and removing the TV was harder than hanging it. After unlocking the clips on my side, Patrick didn't get his undone correctly, and me, being the Mrs. Universe that I am, pulled and twisted and punched a hole in the wall with the bracket. It looks like I put my fist through it. Lovely. What I really wanted to do at this point was sit down and bang my head against it.
8. Patrick removed the mount and we said "screw trying to be precise, just make sure it's level" and moved it up a good six or seven inches. Now it's hanging securely. I just hope the 2x4s don't collapse from all the extra giant holes we drilled.
Did I mention that we're never moving that TV? It would require an entire day of mudding and repainting just to repair all the damage. Luckily it's all hiding behind the TV now. And if we ever put our house up for sale, this must remain a secret. The new people can find out after we're long gone.
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