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Yesterday, I revealed my favorite spot in the house…
…our new built-ins in the family room. We chatted all about these beauties, but I didn’t really go into detail about our TV setup. So that’s what today’s post is all about. 
Once the built-ins were installed, we had the carpenter also mount our TV. We purchased a heavy-duty TV mount (we got this one from Amazon) and had him install it directly into the studs of the wall. 
We love it because you can move the TV around. Pull it out, tilt it up or down, and the best part…you can turn it towards the kitchen. It’s pretty great when you’re chopping away and can catch up on your favorite shows all at the same time. Not that I’m cooking in the kitchen that often…
With the TV all good to go, we had to tackle the cords and electronics. While I started decorating the shelves, Finn got to work on this task. 
We have to keep the cable box out, but everything else we wanted to hide in the cabinets. We picked up a plastic cord cover from Lowe’s that was wide enough to hold all of the cords we had going on. Finn then cut it to size with a hacksaw and attached it to the wall using a bunch of command strips. We thought about painting it to match the wall color, but honestly, the white doesn’t really bother us. 
With the cords neatly tucked into the cord cover, Finn used black zip ties to keep them all together and compact.
They then run down the back of the wall and into a hole we had cut in the top of the built-ins, and into the base cabinet.
This cabinet holds our DVD player and XBOX and we even have a spot for our laptop when we want to stream shows from the computer. It all fits in there neatly and all of the cords go into a plug in the back of the wall. Pretty perfect setup, right? 
But that’s not all we did.
We added some LED lights onto the back of the TV so it can light up at night, whenever we’re watching TV, or when we have people over and want to add some color to the room. 
A friend gave us these, but you can buy an LED light kit online for pretty cheap. It comes with the light strips, a remote, and then the power connector. 
Finn again used some command strips to stick them onto the back of the TV. You can cut the strips to size, so we simply used enough to cover the entire perimeter of the flat screen. 
The little white box has a sensor that slightly sticks out on the bottom of the TV. 
You can then point the remote control at it in order to change the colors. 
Oh and speaking of the colors, there are so many to choose from! I like bright white, but it’s also fun to change the colors up whenever the mood strikes.
There’s also a setting where you can cycle through the colors, so they’re ever-changing. Good for a party atmosphere!
Finn likes to change the color based on what we’re watching on TV. Pink for the bachelor, red for scary movies, and the team colors for whatever sports game he’s watching. Yeah…we definitely have fun with it!
At first I thought it would get kinda old, and we would forget to turn it on. But it’s actually pretty awesome to light up at night. 
I’m sure everyone on our block can see in our window and they wonder what the heck is going on! No, we’re not having a rave, instead, we’re just watching TV.
Casey
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