the damned tv

i feel really crass writing about this while other people are quietly suffering the loss of a family member. i thought about lina many, many times yesterday... what a sweet dog she was, and how her absence is going to affect sarah & georg. i still get weepy thinking about it.

i guess there's nothing like a big, bulky, heavy project to divert your attention for a little while... so we continued the tv saga last night.

the top photo is the "before" picture... our 25" tv in the armoire, with a slew of components beneath, as well as a crapload of junk. (old vcr tapes, mostly.) i always thought our tv was pretty big, actually. i bought it probably 8 years ago, with one of my old boyfriends guiding the purchase. i remember it cost a lot of money --to me-- back then.

it has since acquired a rattly speaker as well as a mysterious neon green splotch in the top right corner of the display. buying a new tv has never been one of my top priorities, though. but when jordan mentioned he was trying to sell his "old" 35" set it seemed like the thing to do.

anyway, photo #2 shows the precise hole we cut into the back of the armoire in order to accomodate the extreme depth of the tv. measuring and cutting took several hours on monday night, but getting to use my faux reciprocating saw made it worth it. i do love me some power tools.

monday night ended in the state indicated in the third photo. before we lifted it into place, i had decided to actually hook the tv up to make sure all the connections were good. (smart, eh?) well, i had trouble getting tivo to display, and as i scratched my head lisa decided she'd had enough ridiculousness for the night and went home. in the end, the tivo problem was not a problem at all... i'm embarrassed to admit that our work was halted due entirely to my stupidity. i simply had not mashed the "input" button on the tv remote enough times. once i did that, everything checked out.

we watched the tv like that tuesdsay night, though i have to admit that the anti-clutter side of my personality was SCREAMING each time i walked through the living room and witnessed that set-up. i am the kind of person who wants every thing in place. i was eager to move on.

so lisa, bless her soul, came over last night to help finish the project. we had measured everything so carefully two nights previous that we knew exactly how we'd have to lift the thing into the cabinet... angle it in, while tilting back a little.

HA! right!!

it soon became evident that ray and i had somehow miscalculated. the depth of the tv wouldn't even allow us to angle it into the cabinet. it wouldn't go in at all.

i actually expected lisa to throw up her hands at this point and leave. but instead she generated the best idea of the night: to remove the entire back panel of the armoire! (a-ha! another chance to use my saw!!)

the next-to-last photo is of lisa & i being the destructo-carpenters we were born to be. (have i mentioned that lisa helps me on practically every home improvement project i've ever done?) in this particular picture i'm in the back with the saw in my hands.

once we pulled the back facing off (just thin plywood) it was farily easy to hoist the tv in through the back opening. i mean, it was hard --that thing is REALLY heavy!-- but it was certainly easier than trying to get it through the front.

so, WHEW! that's done.

or is it?

just before she left, lisa thought she noticed some bowing in the remaining bottom portion of the back panel, from the weight of the tv. her theory was that by removing the top half of the back panel (which, once again, is only thin plywood) we had weakened the structural integrity of the whole piece of furniture. we all stood there and scratched our heads a bit, wondering whether we should install some sort of brace along the back (in a sense, reinstalling a facsimile of what we just removed) to help provide additional support.

after looking at how the armoire was constructed, we determined that there's little chance the thing is going to fall apart because of a little missing plywood, and we scooched the armoire back into place.

so the last picture is the finished project.

i will never buy another big tv again.

unless it is a flat panel high definition thingy that i can just hang over my fireplace, or something simple like that.

Posted by xta at February 10, 2005 11:26 AM | TrackBack