(Welcome to Joey, one of the finalists vying for a blogging position at the upcoming AT:Home Tech. Comment away.)
Youre one of those stylish and tech-savvy people who know the benefits of surround sound and HDTV. Youve purchased your requisite seven speakers, receiver, flat-screen television, universal remote and a DVD collection to rival that of Blockbuster. Theres only one problem. You have wires running EVERYWHERE. Maybe its because you rent, or maybe the thought of knocking out drywall and drilling through the walls of your pre-war Classic Six sends shivers up your spine (and not in the good way).
The good folks at DeCorp have a solution for youDeWire. Armed with some spray adhesive (available on their website), DeWire sticks to your walls, ceiling, and floors, bends around corners and connects your home theater with the same fidelity of standard speaker wire. Then the magic happens. With some compound material (also available on their website) applied with a putty knife, you cover and sand over the wires, just like patching a hole in the wall. Then simply paint or paper and your wires are hidden. HIDDEN. As in invisible. If you do a good enough job of it, when you move you can just cut the wires at the connectors and patch the ends without anyone being the wiser. You might not want to do that though, as your landlord or potential buyer just might fall in love with the idea.
A love like that doesnt come cheap, though. At just over $2 a foot, you probably wont be making the purchase unless you are really into covering up your wires. Then again, if you werent concerned with that youd probably not be on this website. That said, to save a little green you might consider using it only where you need it, blending it with regular speaker wire where it can be tucked behind furniture, etc.
There are a myriad of connectors available, and DeCorp now offers audio/video cable as well. Electrical cable is awaiting approval from Underwriters Laboratory.
-Joey
There are also cable raceways, which allow more flexibility than the puttied-over flat wire solution. First, you can use the low gauge high quality audiophile speaker wire you are already using. Second, you can run power to that rear subwoofer (please not in the same raceway as the speaker wire!). Third, you can rearrange your setup later without needing to rip out sections of painted wall.
Big negative: raceways aren't invisible, by a long shot, and won't fit in well iwth ultraminimal decors.
http://cableorganizer.com/cable-raceway/
This sounds promising, but I failed to find a picture of the finished product. I want to see how it looks. Nicely written, but I need more info! How is it better than the other solutions we've seen?
I wish I knew about "De Wire" earlier, my husband drilled holes in the hardwood floor so he could attach them to the basement ceiling. This was our solution for hiding the speaker wires.
Thanks to this informative article our next installation, which will be in the very near future, will be much easier. I am not a fan of the cable raceways so this would be a perfect solution.
To me, this post reads like an ad for the product, and I doubt its claims. "Cover and sand over the wires, just like patching a hole in the wall" and "simply paint or paper" both sound like very involved, time-consuming steps to me. Did you try this? How long did it take? Was it really invisible, or (as I'd imagine) was it a big puttied-over lump on your wall? Wouldn't it be hard to "paint or paper over" unless you already happened to be painting or papering the wall? Pictures would also be nice.
Hey Jenny,
To answer your questions as concisely as possible, it's as easy as it sounds for a novice do-it-yourselfer. If you can patch a wall, you can put this wire up, it's really as simple as that. If you have ever used that square of patch filler mesh to cover a hole, the kind you spackle over, this is the exact same thing, except the wire is much much thinner and easier to conceal. It's tough to show pictures of a finished product, but you click my name you will see pictures of my loft. There is Dewire on the wall next to the fireplace leading to the speaker, and you truly can not see it. It's also not hard to paint over spackle at all, whether or not you are painting over the whole wall. When you're limited to 300 words, it's not always easy to say everything you want. Yes it reads like an ad, but that's what it's supposed to be, a story about a product I really like and want others to know about.
Sorry Joey. I never got to your photo showcasing the product because after 9000 images of your patio I lost interest. Links should be direct and concise. Having completed a 4 month reno with my partner just recently, the thought of MORE drywall compound and MORE sanding and MORE painting just makes me want to weep. So. We will be looking for wireless solutions, or really, really cute twist ties.
Sorry Janice, next time I will take into consideration that 11 pictures (8 of which are of the patio) are too much to click through.
For those that are interested, click my name for the less stressful way of finding the picture. DeWire is running across from the tv, over the fireplace, to the speaker on the right. As I stated before, there is nothing to see. It really is invisible.
For wire control, the WireMate is a very easy solution. It's neat and inexpensive. I bought one for my PC wires and liked it so much that I went back to buy another for my media wires. www.wiremate.com
It really is as easy as painting or wallpapering is to you. If painting is difficult, don't try it. But if you want to save the time of an in-wall install or can't do one (or don't want to pay the high cost of a professional in-wall), this is way easier.
Personally, when I got DeWire for my home theater system, I just put it under my carpet. Furniture and foot traffic don't bother it at all.
Also, they have 12, 14, and 18 gauge so you can choose high quality, low gauge options.
Anyway, they are selling this DeCorp flatwire and some new wall sconce, low-voltage flatwire over at www.flatwiretv.com