Hiding the TV Mount Inside a Cabinet

April 27, 2017

Few objects can change the vibe in a room quite as much as a television. I think it instantly makes a room’s energy and what it feels “for” different. We watch little television, but like to have one because we love movies. Many people have come up with creative ways to hide a television, but one of my favorites came from a friend when I saw she hid their tv inside a built-in cabinet. I was inspired and wanted to make my own for our house.

The afters of this are kind of funny, because it just looks like a room with no tv! But this is actually the “after” and inside that lower right cabinet is our fully wired and functioning television.

To make this happen, we had to find a mount that had a pretty big range of motion. Lots of mounts go out, and even tilt side to side, but we wanted one that did both of those and also moved up and down to clear the cabinet and make the television’s height at a comfortable viewing level. And it had to fit inside the cabinet, which is relatively small.

HIDING A TV MOUNT INSIDE CABINETS HIDING A TV MOUNT INSIDE CABINETS

With lots of careful measuring and shopping, we found this mount for $135. It was even available on amazon! So easy. I was prepared to pay a lot more for the unique motion we were looking for.

To install it we removed the shelving and center divider from inside the cabinet. The interior of the built-ins is still black because it camouflages the electrical clutter quite nicely. We had an electrician install an outlet in the back of the cabinet for our power source.

Then, we built out a base for the mount to be well, mounted to. This was more measuring to make sure it would clear all the pieces we needed it to and for the arm to fit back in the cabinet while not in use.

A piece of the 1/8″ thick wood we had from our office shiplap was the perfect material to paint (same color as the walls, Sherwin Williams Aesthetic White) and attach to the right door to cover the gap created by needing to remove the center vertical divider of the cabinet.

HIDING A TV MOUNT INSIDE CABINETS

And just like that, it vanishes! The cabinet holds everything we need, like our remotes and dvd player, perfectly. It shifts up and out and around the cabinet door just as we imagined.

The screen has nice viewability from both sofas. Sometimes we move the slipper chairs if we want to have people be able to watch from the floor. Or so you can watch from the slipper chairs.

I love our final set up and one of my favorite things about it is that in winter we can have movie nights by the fire without a tv taking over the room. The best! And Christmas movie nights under the tree. Okay, but it is April. Whatever, movies are a year-round kind of thing and it is so nice that our living room can convert to movie-central or a social space more conducive for conversation whenever we please.

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  • Gary

    Hey I am doing something similar with our entertainment cabinet. So I would love to see a picture of inside the cabinet. Maybe with doors open and tv extended. My cabinet is to deep to mount tv to the cabinet wall. I will have to beef it up with 2 x 10s or something similar. Can you send me a pic of the inside?

    Thank you!

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