Hiding a Cable Box and DVD Player

Hello and happy weekend! Do you have anything planned for these next few days? Lately, our weekends have been a mix of relaxing, half marathon training (my recent 9-miler was a beast), and house projects. Last weekend, I finally converted our "new" buffet into a media center.

In keeping with our "theme" of hiding TV cords in our back room, thus making things a little more baby-friendly, I wanted to tuck our cable box and DVD player out of sight. At first, I thought about putting the cable box and DVD player in a drawer and adding a hinge to the drawer front so that it would drop down when we wanted to watch TV. After talking with Meg, she suggested drilling holes in the back of the buffet and buying an Infrared Receiver Extender Cable. The cable plugs into the cable box or DVD player (out of sight) and the receiver is mounted to the front of the TV or somewhere else in sight of your remote control.

Unfortunately, that model was incompatible with our U-verse HD cable box (a Cisco ISB 7005). Fortunately, one of the Q&A commenters on Amazon suggested a model by Nextronics. I ultimately purchased the Nextronics IR Infrared Remote Extender Repeater (Dual). I liked this model because we could control the cable box and DVD player with one infrared receiver.

This whole project, not including the cost of the buffet, costless than $30. About $21 for the infrared extender and about $6 for a Bosch 1-1/2-inch spade bit from Home Depot.

I ultimately decided to put the cable box and DVD player in one of the side cabinets. There's a little more room for the DVD player to open and I only had to drill through one layer of wood. Based on Young House Love's similar project, I marked off 4 holes (3 inches apart) for the wires and ventilation.

After donning a pair of safety glasses (trust me, wood was flying!), I made quick work of drilling the holes.

Once the holes are sanded, you can hook everything back up. The HDMI cables were already connected to the TV and tucked behind the wall thanks to the Wallblade (see how we installed it here).

The infrared extender cable uses the USB port on the TV as its power source. Once connected to the TV, I fed the wire with the two mini transmitters through the Wallblade and through the holes in the back of the buffet. I then stuck the mini transmitters on the translucent or infrared window on the front of the cable box and DVD player. Finally, I mounted the large receiver to the front of the TV.

So far, everything is working well. The large receiver has a light that turns green when turned on and will flash red when it receives a signal from your remote control. Just be sure to point the remote at the receiver.

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