Wednesday, March 9, 2011

T.V. Frame Follow-Up

A few people have asked how we keep the frame attached to the television, so I thought I'd share our technique. When the Mr. built the frame he measured and measured and measured again, so that the dimensions were dead on. Then he routered the interior and the frame would literally pop onto the television and stay put.


This worked perfectly for about 4 months, then the humidity changes in the house started causing the frame to warp at an alarming rate.






You can see in the above pic that the frame does not lie flush to the floor.


It's really surprising it got this warped. The Mr. not only glued the corners, he used those wiggly frame grippers to keep it all together...

It wasn't gripping well anymore and the top left and bottom right corners weren't flush with the t.v. anymore. He was afraid it was going to fall off eventually, so we took it down and started brainstorming. We kept making it harder than it needed to be, thinking about fabricating corners to screw behind the back of the t.v. and attaching leather straps to keep it in place.

In the end, we used D-rings and Velcro.


You'll need 4 D-ring brackets (ours came with the screws) and a length of Velcro. How much Velcro you need depends entirely on how big you t.v. is. I also used a manual pre-driller thingie since you don't really want to use your drill for such delicate work.

You still have to be careful with it though.

Drilled right through it. Whoops.
I approximated where the thickest part of the frame was, then pre-drilled the first set of holes. I then measured from those holes to the edge of the frame to determine where the other three needed to go.


I sewed the Velcro through two of the D-rings, just to make sure it would hold.



I also sewed a fold about an inch wide on the other end so the grippy side would be facing the fuzzy side once it was ready to be attached.





Then I screwed them all on.




Do you see my awesome P.J.'s? They have gnomes on them. My favorites. 


I don't have any pictures of us putting it back on the wall because it took all 4 of our hands to do. Once you get it up there, pull the trailing ends of the Velcro through the two remaining empty D-rings and pull tight. Ta - Da! That sucker ain't goin' nowhere.


Here's what it looks like from the side:



Eh, it's blurry, but you get the idea.

You wanna know what's pisses me off? See that antenna? I bought a new fangled, fancy, expensive television because I was under the impression that I would automatically get basic channels. We don't have cable, don't need cable, don't want cable. Or satellite. Or anything that could potentially cause me to be any lazier than I already am. It pisses me off that I spend a considerable amount of money on new HDTV technology and I still need rabbit ears to get basic channels. Even then we only get three channels... Really tv people?