Installing a new TV can be daunting, and then hiding the wires usually seems like too much. But tucking away those wires in a stylish and thoughtful way will definitely elevate any space and keep it from feeling like an early 2000s home office. After all, you love your flatscreen TV for its sleek lines that accentuate the room’s design, and unruly TV cords only hinder that.
Learn 13 great options to hide TV wires without any hassle.
Ways to hide TV wires
Create groups in one flexible zippered cable manager
They become an easily managed problem when you zip all the cords into a flexible fabric cable manager. These braided sleeves fit up to seven strings and keep them compact and neat.
Available in a variety of colors that blend in with the wall or disappear into the darkness, zippered cable managers are about two feet long, but can be lined up as long as you’d like.
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put in cable management box
The Spruce / Jacob Fox
An electrical strip on the floor is the source of many visual problems, as many electrical wires extend from it. It’s a cord traffic jam that attracts cobwebs and debris like a magnet.
Made of strong ABS plastic, a cable management box neatly hides power strip And extra wire in a container that looks like it belongs right there. Typical colors are off-white, white, black, wood colors and more; Some may even be painted. The side cable port can be opened or closed as needed. Most boxes have air holes or slots to allow discreet ventilation.
Bundle with DIY cable ties
With cable ties a little goes a long way. If you’re not ready for more robust wire-hiding solutions yet, individual cable ties every foot or so turn a thick bunch of wires into a thin bundle.
You don’t even need special cable ties, just buy a roll of black 3/4-inch-wide hook-and-loop tape and cut as much as you need. For less than $15, a 10-foot roll is enough to pull together as many TV cords as you need.
replace with shorter wires
Excessively long TV cords that snake around the floor can be difficult to shorten—even with cable management boxes and ties. The solution is to replace the longer strings with shorter strings.
Power, HDMI, coaxial, and data cables all come in various lengths – some as short as a foot. Speaker wire with bare ends can be cut manually snatched back To length.
Move the outlet to the side of the TV
The Spruce / Kevin Norris
The best way to hide the TV power cord is to mount the TV directly in front of an outlet. When you can’t bring your TV to an outlet, bring Shop For TV. When expanding an outlet laterally, holes must be created between the studs, which can then be patched with drywall, tape, and paint.
To hide TV wires, it is beneficial to you that according to the National Electrical Code no space on the wall should be more than 6 feet from an outlet (or, outlets shall not be more than 12 feet apart). This means that the outlet closest to the desired TV location can be extended up to 6 feet – less work for anyone. Licensed Electrician,
Hide in wall raceways and channels
The TV wires mounted on the wall have to travel a long distance to reach the top and yet they remain invisible. Depending on the size of your TV and Mount height as you likeThat distance can be anywhere from 10 to 31 inches (based on a 12-inch outlet height). For this problem, wall raceways and channels come to the rescue.
Raceways and channels are flat or D-shaped tubes that run along the surface of a wall to hide TV wires. Typically, the back strip is screwed to the drywall with self-adhesive anchors or sticks. After you’ve attached the cords, a decorative plate snaps into place over the previous piece. They’re made of plastic in neutral, wall-camouflaging colors, and most can be painted to match the wall color.
move them straight up
If you’re lucky enough to have a TV directly above an outlet, it’s easy to move the outlet higher. This is because TV wires can travel between two studs – there is no need to drill holes in the studs to run the wire horizontally.
It also helps that old work or old reconstruction plastic electrical box Allows you to put that high outlet into drywall without having to nail it to studs.
The best part is that drywall patching is not required. It’s easy to hold the wire vertically through the open stud bay. The bottom outlet can stay in place and supply power for other devices.
Run Through Baseboard Quarter-Round Channel
Raceways and channels run the TV wires perpendicular to the wall. But what about moving them forward a few feet horizontally? One clever tool that’s hard to locate is the baseboard quarter-round replacement channel.
Many homes already have a type of tall, narrow trim called a quarter-round. This has nothing to do with wiring. It is a piece made of solid wood or PVC that hides the gap between the wall baseboard and the floor.
Hollow plastic quarter-round replacements let you run two or three wires simultaneously through the wall. With a top piece that fits into the attached back section, these quarter-round channels are easy to open and close when you need to change wiring.
Run behind crown or wall trim
The Spruce / Jacob Fox
Crown molding bridges the corner between walls and ceiling and provides a large space to run TV wires around the room. For thin speaker wires that need to run perpendicular to the wall, the back side of the door trim often has a shallow channel large enough for the wire.
Crown molding is difficult to remove and replace cleanly. But straight parts of existing crown molding can be fished out of metal electrician’s fish tapeFor this, you will have to remove a portion of the crown molding on the end to access the space.
hide behind a wall
Keep wires completely out of sight by hiding them within the wall. Drilling holes and breaking electrical cords and wires is a known fire hazard that violates the National Fire Code, but an in-wall power kit can be used to remain in code compliance. This way, the wires will be stored safely behind the wall, and the cables will not get tangled or damaged. hanging freely,
hide behind a false wall
Construction of a false, non-load bearing wall Little more than a two-by-four, drywall, drywall screws, and trim is required. The false wall can be connected to the wall behind it. Or you can bring the false wall forward and connect it to the ceiling and floor.
With either version, adding trim at the junction between the false wall and ceiling, floor and adjacent walls saves you a lot of work adding drywall compound and sanding corners with drywall tape.
hide them in plain sight
Be creative and make TV wires and cords a part of your home design. For cords that need to run horizontally along the floor, make them part of your baseboard molding or hide them in a piece of furniture that has built-in outlets. For wires that need to run vertical, create a temporary pillar or piece of wood, depending on your design aesthetic.
plug power strip into wall
Chanakon Lorob/Getty Images
When the power strip rests on the floor under the TV, it becomes messy and looks makeshift. Simply removing a power strip from the floor and attaching it to the wall is a quick way to declutter wires and make everything look neater.
The keyholes on the back of power strips can be difficult to locate. If you misplace your screws even slightly, the bandage will not fit properly. Once you discover how easy it is to set up a power strip, you’ll have it set up in minutes.
- Run painter’s tape across the entire back side of the power strip.
- Rub your finger on the tape to locate two keyholes.
- Make a hole in each keyhole with a pen. Make sure to drill the hole in the thin part of the keyhole, not the round part.
- Pull painter’s tape and apply it to the wall.
- Insert the screw directly through the hole in the painter’s tape, then peel off the tape.
What type of cords should be hidden
Surface-mount channels and raceways cannot be used for concealment domestic current construction wire. plastic-sheathed nm or metal plated bx electrical wire Must be installed within walls for safety. Individual strand THHN wires must be installed in rigid metal conduit. THHN, NM, and BX wiring cannot be installed in open locations.
Power supply wires connected to TVs and other electronic equipment can usually be installed in surface-mounted channels and raceways. Before doing this, always check the safety instructions of the device.
Ethernet cords, data cables, speaker wires, coaxial, HDMI, and other wires that carry low or no voltage can be run through channels and raceways or left open.
