Just tinkering. Ended up saving some real cash.

John Pollman

Member
Messages
1,332
Location
Rochester Hills, MI
Howdy folks!

Long time, no talk. Haven't participated much in a while. I read but haven't posted much. Well I've got a little gloat I wanted to share. A lot of people nowadays are upgrading their TV's to new flat panel wall mount units. They are very nice and look great when doing it that way. We just recently did it here. We've had a 27" RCA CRT type TV in an armoire in our master bedroom. I got a great deal on a 32" LCD HDTV about a week ago so I jumped on it. The killer with these things is the amount that they charge for the wall mount hardware. I ended up getting a fully articulated one for about $50 which is by no means cheap but it's much better than some I've seen. I got the TV all mounted where I wanted it and then I installed a new outlet for the power and another box for the cable behind the TV so that there will be no cable running down the wall beneath the TV. But I had another problem, what to do with the cable box. Easy enough, just put a shelf in. I didn't really want a big hunky looking wood shelf so I went shopping online. Yes I found quite a few "A/V shelves" available. But I had to do a double take when I looked at the prices! It's worse than the mounts. I just wanted a small glass shelf to mount the 10" square cable box. The nice ones I found were just too big and too expensive for what they are. So I headed to the BORG and figured I'd find something there. They had glass shelves but they were not deep enough and way too wide. Right below the glass shelf setups were some nice glass shelf brackets. They looked really nice and were only $8 for a set. They just mount easily to the wall with a molly and one screw. Then insert the shelf and a hidden screw is tightened up and you're good to go. Well I didn't want to use regular glass and it would cost a ton to get a custom size piece of tempered glass so I headed over to the hardware department and picked up a piece of clear lexan. It was .220 thickness and 18x24 in size. It was only $14.97 so I grabbed it and the brackets and headed home. I wanted a 10x10 shelf so I set up my table saw with a fine tooth blade and cut the shelf to size. Once I had it the right size, I took some 150 sandpaper and smoothed all of the edges and slightly rounded the corners and took off any sharp edges. I mounted the brackets where I wanted them and popped the shelf into place. It worked great! So for $23 and change, I've got my custom size A/V shelf and I'm all set. It looks better than any I found online for between $50 and $100 too! Here's what it looks like...

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If you're in a similar situation, this is a good way to get just the right size shelf you need without breaking the bank. What do you think?

Take care and Happy New Year all!

John
 
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