The Hicks | Hicks House

Finally, after two months of living in our house, we have ordered blinds. As you are learning by reading this blog, like many things you may take for granted when buying a house – builder houses do not come with blinds. And I’m not talking about pretty decorative curtains, I’m talking blinds – the things behind the pretty curtains that keep your neighbors from seeing you nakey. Yeah, those – we don’t have those.

Not only do they provide privacy, from the inside but they also block things you don’t want to see on the outside. Like the lovely street post that shines right in the window by where you lay your head when you’re trying to go to sleep.

Did I mention how EXCITED I AM that the blinds are finally coming? I will no longer have to get dressed in the closet. I will no longer have to worry about street lights at night. I will no longer have to worry about people walking by staring directly into our house.

Hopefully with the coming long weekend we will be able to at least get up the ones in the bedroom – the rest of the rooms are second priority to being able to actually say: “In the privacy of our own bedroom” and be able to mean it.

Perhaps one of the best things about owning your own home is the ability to be able to put holes in the wall whenever you want. Be it to hang a beloved photograph or to mount that gigantic 55″ TV.

When we originally toured our home, one of the features we fell in love with was the great open floor plan on the first floor. The entire back of the house is one big room – the kitchen flows right into the formal living room that ends in a gas fireplace. The builder thinking he was super smart and doing the future home-owners a favor wired over the fireplace for cable.

This would have been the ideal option if the living room was large enough to hold more than a loveseat and there wasn’t a much bigger room right off of the formal living room that would make a great more casual and comfortable family room. Only problem is this bigger room was not wired… Uh-Oh.

Don’t worry, I’m married to super handy man who added extra wiring to the garage, he can totally run a wire up from the basement through the wall in the family room right?

Since we were both dead set on not only having the TV in this room, but having it mounted to the wall with no visible wires that is just what Ken did. There was a little bit of anxiety on both our parts when the hole for the new recessed outlet to go behind the TV was cut.

This is the first hole we put in our brand new walls!

The blue painters tape was used to visualize where the TV would be to ensure that the mount and big giant hole were in the correct spot. The wires were run up from the basement in between the wall studs and up through that hole and connected to a new recessed outlet so the TV could sit flush against the wall without worrying about the plug sticking out.

The rest of the mount assembly was added

It was a lot more complicated than this picture suggests. One – it’s really heavy and takes two hands to hold. Two – If you’re lucky enough to have a third hand, you need to have double jointed fingers in order to grab and turn the screws properly.

Once it all completed we got nervous. What if we did it wrong? What if it doesn’t hold the TV right and it comes crashing down off the wall and crushes us as we’re walking by? A test was needed. The package said the mount should be able to hold up to 155lbs, now assuming it was all installed properly that is much more than the TV which we guestimate at 35 – 50lbs. So what weighs more than 50lbs but less than 155lb…?