Jess and I went to the Portland farmers market today and came back with more than a few things. We were very impressed with the quality of the items we sampled while we were there. Compared to what we had seen in the Chicago farmers markets, the quality and variety here was much better.

In our previous apartment, the center speaker of our dinky surround sound system sat on a small glass shelf that was mounted to the wall just above the center of the TV. Because we didn't want to make as many holes in the wall in our new place since the walls are painted, I needed to come up with another place to mount the center speaker.

My idea was to build some kind of bracket that I could screw into the VESA mounting holes on the back of the TV as well as the threaded mounting hole of the speaker. Jess and I went to the local hardware store and I was looking around the parts area to try to find various pieces of metal that would work for what I had in mind. They didn't sell exactly what I was looking for, so I had to come up with a different design on the spot. I explained to Jess the idea that I had in case she came up with a better idea. After listening to me explain my idea, she said "Would the speaker fit on the entertainment center in front of the TV?". I told her the truth, which is that I don't believe that thought had even crossed my mind.

Undeterred by her sense-making, I continued to look for the various screws, nuts, washers, etc. that I would need to build my bracket. When I was about to head to the register to pay, I noticed they had a "Grab Bag" box on top of the racks holding all the loose screws, nuts, and other fasteners. Inside were several bags filled with random parts, probably ones that customers had returned or dropped on the floor. They were selling these for only $1, which was a pretty good deal considering I found one that had upwards of 50 parts, mostly washers but quite a few machine bolts, nuts, and wood screws.

Eventually I was able to get the various parts I had bought bolted together in such a way as to make a functioning bracket. While attempting to mount this bracket to the TV, I discovered that my TV doesn't have a standard VESA mount. It has 4 M5 threaded holes at the corners of a square with 200mm spacing between holes, but the thread depth of the upper left and lower right holes (looking from the back) is much deeper than that of the other two holes. The M5 screws I had purchased were all 16mm long, which was too long to fit in the upper right hole. So I pulled out the grab bag I had purchased, and as luck would have it there was one M5 screw that was maybe 8mm long, and it fit in that hole perfectly. Since I only needed the upper two holes of the (non)-VESA bracket holes, I was done.


As with most things I do, this was far more complicated than it needed to be. But the end result is pretty.