DIY: Faux Wall TV Mount

Here’s a “quick” DIY I wanted to show off!

Why do I say QUICK in quotation marks? Because this DIY wasn’t actually quick. Hahahaha. You’ll see…

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So we started off by wanting to mount our living room TV on to the wall because the kids kept pulling on the legs and that was just a bad disaster waiting to happen.

We quickly pivoted from just using a TV mount on the wall to making something cool, like a frame or something similar so it wouldn’t just sit by its lonesome on the wall. Plus, we wouldn’t be able to hide the cables into the wall without doing major damage and repairing, so we needed something that would hide the cables as well.

To get some inspiration on what we wanted it to look like, we took it to Pinterest!

We found a pin that inspired us to make our own version of a fake, or faux, wall if you want to make it fancy.

Now, that pin and others like it, tend to go with the nailing-it-on-the-wall approach. Husband wanted to take it a step further, and so we decided that it would be cool if we could make it in a way where we could hang it up like a piece of art and be able to take it with us in one piece if we ever decide to move. 

And so our search began for used pallets. We actually found someone right away, after posting a wanted post on our local Facebook group. We ended up getting about 8 pallets for free (I don’t remember the number exactly because this was back in February and the remains are long gone).

The pallets sat in our garage for a couple of weeks before we took them apart, and by we, I mean Husband. Then another 2-3 weeks went by before we actually put them together, and by we I mean me.

We had a rough estimate of how big we wanted it to be. 

Then, I had to search for something we could use to hang this thing on the wall. By my rough calculations, and by that I mean a number I totally pulled out of my butt, I needed something that could hold up to 300lbs. Mostly because that was the highest limit any hangers could offer.

So I purchased this bad boy off of Amazon.

In hindsight, I wish I had planned for 2 of them, but oh well, maybe that’s something for the future.

Anywho at this point, I had arranged the boards together shaping our faux wall tv mount. Husband helped flipped them over to screw them together with other pieces of pallet wood. This is roughly what it looked like on the back (because I forgot to take pictures before we hung it).

It did end up measuring 18 inches wider than originally planned. The two longer pieces in the middle are 2x4s and the blank rectangles are 1x6s (I think) and that’s where I screwed in the hanger, on the top one.

After everything was screwed in place, it was time to flip over and stain.

A guy at Home Depot said we should use a pre-stain so the wood wouldn’t soak up all our stain and so I did one layer of that first.

I picked a black stain because I wanted it to POP right out of the wall annnd it matched all our other furniture. One coat was all it took using a quart of Varathane Classic Penetrating Stain in Classic Black. Don’t let that depiction of the stain on Home Depot’s website fool you because it definitely is completely black.

The weekend after I stained it, it rained and some of the boards shrunk with the humidity!

So, I then went over the gaps where you could see the wood underneath with spray paint.

The following week, I did 3 layers of clear polyurethane spray to make sure we wouldn’t get stain accidents when touching, wiping, etc.

After about 2 weeks after that, we put the tv mount in place and finally brought it inside. One of our neighbors helped hubby bring it in from the garage. It is SUPER heavy. We finally did a little rough math and getting some numbers off of google we estimate this thing to weigh between 275lbs on the low end and 345lbs on the heavy end with the 65in TV and mount on it.

So… we’re pushing our luck with the hanger, but so far it’s been almost a week and it’s still on the wall! We definitely secured the hangers well on the wall by using 2 wall anchors and using all the screws it came with on 2 studs. My (and by my I mean apparently I’m the only one who thinks it) main concern is that if it’s too heavy, the hanger will give out and bend backward, causing it to slide right off. But, it still looks fine, because I obviously check it regularly to see if it’s giving in yet hahaha.

Maybe I’m not giving the hanger enough credit? I don’t know, I just know that the kids are not allowed to touch it. EVER. and perhaps in the near future, I’ll get another hanger on the bottom board to get a little more peace of mind. We love that it looks like it’s floating and the pallet wall itself looks like it only sticks out 1-2 inches from the wall as it kind of curves in towards the edges, so that’s awesome!

Anyway, here’s what our faux wall TV mount looks like all pretty up on the wall. We also mounted our soundbar, so add another 3lbs..? *laughs nervously*

It might look like it’s not leveled because some boards are warped or not even around the top and bottom, but I assure you, the TV is leveled! It doesn’t get more rustic than that. 😀

Most of the stuff we used, we already had, but here’s the full list of things used for this DIY Faux Wall TV Mount project:

• Pallet wood (about 6 pallets worth)
• Hammer (for removing nails from pallets)
• Tape measure
• Painter’s Tape (to outline rough size on the floor)
• Two – 2x4x8ft wood studs
• One – 1x6x6 wood board (cut in half; this was already in our garage when we moved in, so not 100% on type of wood, just know it was on the heavy-sturdy side)
• Power drill 
• 2in screws (for attaching the 2×4 wood studs to pallet wood, and the hanger to the 1×6 all the way through to the 2×4 studs)
• 1 1/4in screws (for attaching pallet wood to pallet wood)
• Dremel (for sanding off peeking screw tips)
• 1 qt Varathane Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner
• 1qt Varathane Wood Stain – Classic Black
• Two – 3in Paint & Stain brush
• Cotton rags
• Rust-Oleum Flat Spray Paint – Black
• 1 can – Varathane Clear Polyurethane Spray Paint – Satin
• Heavy-duty hanger
• Six – Toggle bolt anchors (used four – 3/16” for attaching the tv mount to the 2×4 wood studs on the pallet wall and two – 1/4” for the hanger piece that was screwed into the wall)
• Four – 3/16×3/4in Washers (used for TV mount toggle anchors)
• 1/4in drill bit (used on 2×4 wood studs on pallet wall for TV mount toggle anchors)
• 2in Hole Saw drill bit (used on pallet wall for making cable hole above TV mount)
• 7/8in Spade drill bit (used on drywall for hanger toggle anchors)

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Although this took a long time to put together, we love the outcome! 

We’ll be doing some small-ish DIY upgrades around the house so keep an eye out for those on Instagram!

UPDATE: We were uneasy about how we simply hanged this 300+lbs monstrosity, so we ended up BOLTING the whole thing on the wall hahaha. We simply drilled a couple of holes right under where the hanger is, avoiding the 2x4s and screwing the bolts into the actual wall studs. It has been on the wall this entire time and does not budge at all!

It looks completely unchanged from the back as well as the front (except the bolt heads), so we’re pretty happy with it!

What do you think of this DIY? Have you dived into any projects while stuck at home? Let me know in the comments below!