As usual for me with any kind of home project, they always start simple and then turn into a long, drawn-out process…

I wanted to get a new stand for the TV in the bedroom so it would be high enough to be seen over the foot of the bed.  I also wanted to move it into a corner so that it wouldn’t be too close to the foot of the bed as I walked by.  The final impetus was when I rubbed up against it and the clip of a knife in my pocket scratched the wood of the footboard.

As I was looking at racks and stands it occurred to me that I had a bunch of leftover equipment that I wasn’t using.  Over the years I’d upgraded all the components in my home theater, to the point that I had a receiver, a set of speakers, and a VCR and DVD player.  So with this realization, the project went from “get the TV out of the way” to “put all this equipment to use and move the TV.” 

After looking at various catalogs and websites, I finally arrived at a suitable stand (in cherry).  But it occurred to me that there were going to be a lot of wires running out of this thing to the various speakers (five satellite speakers plus a subwoofer).  I didn’t want them laying on the floor or running under the carpet.  And I’d learned in the past that wires hung from the wall or the ceiling look like crap.  I’d previously used some self-adhesive wire-tracks, but I found that over time they’d eventually come unstuck.  So I found some on-wall nonmetallic raceway at Home Depot that screws into the wall. 

While these things look pretty good when they’re done, they’re a pain to put up.  You have to drill six holes for each 5-ft section, and put in the associated inserts and screws.  It took me over 5 hours to put up all the tracks and run most of the wire (I started around 7:30pm on Friday and had to stop round 1:00 am when I ran out of speaker wire, with only one speaker remaining). 

When I was all done, the setup looked good and sounded good.  There was just one problem:  the receiver and other components were below the foot of the bed, so their remotes wouldn’t work.  One more trip to Radio Shack (and there’s a rant involved there), and the problem was solved.

In the end I’m not sure if it was worth all the trouble and expense, but at least I’ve got a kick-ass system in the bedroom that can scare the dog (if you’ve experienced the THX “thing” at the beginning of the Star Wars: Episode IV DVD you’ll understand.).