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" Hanging a flat-panel LCD or plasma television on your wall is a simple project that can be accomplished in about an hour. But, once you&amp;#039;re done, it takes a surprising amount of faith to step back and leave a $1000 to $5000 piece of electronics perched above the floor\u2014suspended only by the quality of your workmanship. My own fear of the devastating effects of gravity kept a 37-in. LCD TV sitting on my floor for months. I could have paid a professional installer to hang the set, but I knew I had the skills and tools to do the job myself. It just took a while to muster the courage. Obviously, TVs don&amp;#039;t hang on picture hooks, so if you decide to do this project, you need to get a wall mount. All mounts have a weight rating, and the first thing you need to determine is how heavy your set is. In general, LCD sets weigh less than plasmas of the same size, but no large TV is light: Expect a 42-in. LCD television to be 45 to 60 pounds, while a 42-in. plasma will tip the scales at 80 pounds. You&amp;#039;ll also want to study up on the situation inside your wall. Hollow-wall anchors will not hold television mounts, so unless you&amp;#039;ve got a concrete wall where you can sink some anchors (decorative brick doesn&amp;#039;t count) you&amp;#039;re going to need to find the studs. Use a stud finder and mark off the center of the studs near where you&amp;#039;d like to mount your set. As a rule, TVs under 80 pounds and 40 in. can be anchored to a single stud. For anything bigger, use two. Most mounts allow you to adjust a few inches to the left or right, but don&amp;#039;t expect post-Newtonian miracles. Take a close look at where your studs will position the TV. Is it going to catch glare from windows? Is it clearly visible from all the seats in the room? My TV ended up a bit off center on the wall; such compromises are hard to avoid. The best way to ensure a perfect fit is to buy a mounting kit from the manufacturer that built your set, but that&amp;#039;s not always the most economical choice. Manufacturers such as Bell&amp;#039;O, Peerless Industries and Sanus Systems offer aftermarket mounts with various weight ratings that cost from $20 to $1200 and can be adjusted to fit most TVs. I went with a $70 Sanus MF202, which is sturdy and not too expensive, and is constructed with a ball-joint mechanism to allow for full-motion tilting. Mounts are capable of some \u00ADrather exotic articulations. Some models even have remote-control, extendable arms. As you move up the ladder in sophistication, though, expect the cost to go up and the weight rating to go down\u2014the \u00ADfarther you move the set away from the wall, the more shearing force you put on the connection to the stud. Mounts generally have two main pieces: One attaches to the wall, and the other to the back of the television. Use the wall bracket as a template to mark the position of your pilot holes. The hardware will require some pretty heavy-duty lagscrews, and you&amp;#039;ll need a socket wrench and plenty of muscle to screw them into the studs. Before you torque down the final turns, check your work with a level\u2014nothing ruins home theater more than an off-kilter TV. To prep your TV, remove its stand, which probably is held in place by four screws in the back. If you&amp;#039;re attaching an aftermarket mount, you&amp;#039;ll have to do a little trial and error with the bolts and washers\u2014the kit should include several sizes of each. Make sure to secure the bolts to the metal frame of the set. A television can have more than a dozen screws and bolts holding together everything from circuit boards to the plastic cover, and those are not components you want supporting the weight of your television. Once both brackets are secure, have someone help you get the TV onto the wall\u2014for really large TVs you might need three people. One person should spot while the other lifts. Mounts secure in various ways, but the basic idea is that the TV bracket clips onto (or slots into) the wall bracket. Confirm that everything is locked down, and give your TV a few light test tugs to make sure it&amp;#039;s on tight. Then check back in about an hour. If your TV hasn&amp;#039;t fallen by then, you probably put it up correctly. Step 1: Pick Your Spot  Use a stud finder to locate the center of the studs of the wall that will hold your television. Step 2: Apply Some Torque  Securing the wall bracket requires hefty lagscrews, a socket wrench and plenty of oomph.  Step 3: Ditch the Stand  You won&amp;#039;t need a stand anymore, so un-bolt it from the TV&amp;#039;s frame. Step 4: Attach the TV Hardware  A second bracket mounts to the TV. Universal kits come with several fasteners, to match every set. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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