OK...so i am going to try continue this thread after..umm...4.5 years! From above post: "you can chop some grout out between the bricks and put your wires in there and re-grout with cement over that". I would like to know if this is feasible in my case since it might be the way to go for me. I have 7ft wide and 0.5 ft deep stone wall (rough surface) running from floor all the way to ceiling (high; 14ft or so). It appears there is an inch or two of concrete connecting the stones and the wall behind it. The goal is the same - put a tv on this wall above the fireplace. Doing the wiring by removing one of the stones and running electrical behind the tv is surely the best way, but the labor charges are above what i want to spend. So that brings to the question: Since there is a mantle which leaves only ~3inches of stone exposed (and hence the cable if i run it down behind the tv and behind the mantle) I have only 3inches cable exposed from front view and ~6inches from side view (depth of stone is 6in). Do you think i can remove some of the mortar mix in between the stones, run the extension cord cable + hdmi + cat5 through the groove, put a duct tape and cover it with matching (hopefully) mortar mix? Is it also possible to remove a little bit of that cement (vertically connecting the stones with the wall behind) and do the same concealing patchwork to run the wire down? Let's see if anyone picks my ques

grandmaof3.....it's a sleek, austere...not too cluttered look. AND a $4k surround sound system, it's heavy to move. It needs to be away from soot/dirt...heat. I'm painting an old cane sided chair black, reupholstering it in a black and white bamboo fabric and hope THAT will finish out the look. :0) Thanks for all the replies!!!

We have a lift cabinet for our family room tv. I love it, as I dislike seeing a tv when it's not on. My DH is now talking about replacing it with something more shallow. The back is open on ours and we get a lot of dust in through the back. Ours does hold our DVD's on the upper shelves, but only the lower shelf is deep enough to hold the components. Because of that, we need the tower next to it to hold the rest of them. Another negative with lift cabs is that you can't put anything on the top surface of it, as it lifts up with the tv. But, I do love the look of the nice uncluttered cabinet with my wonderful Native American art framed above it instead of a big, black tv. < Edited to add: Just saw the video on a tv lift cab that Lars posted. I like that there is room on top to put a lamp, piece of art, etc. There doesn't look to be any DVD storage in it, but there is room for components. Because they're off to the side, with side access, can you still use your remote(s) to easily operate everything from your seats? With the component door closed? >

The top of the mantel should come off and it will have a large hollow area inside. You could run wiring from the shelf on the left over to the mantel and hide that short stretch with wire-mold painted black. Then run the wire through the mantel and over to the area under the TV. If the brick finish is only facing over a pre-fab fireplace you may also be able to drill through from the side and line up with the area under the mantel. I lived in a house built in 1996 and the fireplace was a prefab unit with 2x4 framing and sheetrock, and then they added stone facing. There was very large hollow area around the flue, and you could see it from the attic. It even had an air tube running up to the attic for make-up air for the fireplace insert. FYI - My current mantel has an electrical outlet right on top of the mantel, and two sconce lights mounted about 16 inches above the mantel, but I can't figure out how they ran the wiring through the brick. The house was built in 1940 and that wiring was original to the fireplace. Bruce