Mounting a TV on a Log Wall

Part of our complete guide: How to Mount a TV on Any Wall.

Log walls turn up more often around here than people expect. There are log homes through Madison and Garrard County, cabins on the lake south of Somerset, timber-framed great rooms in newer builds out toward Versailles, and a fair number of 1970s log kit houses still standing in good order.

They are the strongest thing most of us will ever hang a television on, and they are also among the most awkward. The strength is free; the awkwardness is all in the surface, the movement and the wires.

1. The Log Is the Structure

On an ordinary wall, the whole job is finding what is behind the finish. On a solid log wall there is no behind. The log is the framing, the sheathing and the finish all at once, which means a stud finder has nothing useful to tell you and the usual question — what will actually hold this — stops being a question at all.

A lag bolt properly set into the body of a seasoned log has more holding power than the same bolt in a two-by-four, and the limit on the install stops being the wall and becomes the mount: its weight rating, its bolt pattern, and whether its plate can sit flat. That is a nice problem to have, and it is the opposite of what we deal with on drywall with no stud where the TV needs to go.

2. The Surface Is the Real Problem

A wall plate is a flat piece of steel. A log wall is a stack of round or half-round timbers with a groove between each course. Put the two together and the plate touches only the crowns of the logs, usually at two points, with air behind the rest of it.

Tighten the lags in that position and the plate is being drawn down onto its high spots — so it bends, it can rock under a moving arm, and the bolts carry load at an angle they were never meant to. The fix is not more torque. It is one of two approaches, decided by looking at the wall:

• Keep the plate inside one log. On a wall of broad, flat-faced timbers, a compact flat or tilting plate often fits within a single course, where the face is at its flattest and every fastener lands in the same piece of wood. This is the cleanest outcome and the one we aim for first.
• Add a backer. Where the plate has to cross courses, a hardwood board scribed to the log profile goes on first, fastened into two or three logs, and the mount goes onto the board. The backer gives a flat plane, spreads the load and keeps the mount's own hardware out of the chink lines.

A backer is not on our price list, because the right one depends entirely on the profile of the wall, the span and the size of the screen. Ask us about it when you book and we will tell you what that wall takes once we have looked at it.

3. A Log Home Moves

This is the part specific to log construction and the part most likely to be ignored. Logs give up moisture for years after a house goes up, and the whole wall shrinks in height as they do. Even a settled older home breathes with the seasons, swelling in a humid Kentucky summer and shrinking back through winter.

What that means in practice is simple enough. A mount fastened within a single log moves with that log and nothing is stressed. A mount rigidly bolted across two courses is bridging a joint that intends to close over time, and in a newer home that can mean a plate under load it never had on the day it went up.

It is also worth knowing where not to drill. Log homes build in deliberate allowances for all this — slip joints and settling space above window and door frames, and framed interior partitions that are free to move against the log wall. Those are structural details doing a job, and a television goes on the clear face of the wall rather than in the middle of them.

4. Fasteners for Seasoned Timber

Dry, dense timber is excellent to fasten into and unforgiving of a rushed pilot hole. The short version of what we do:

• Into the body of the log, as near as practical to the thickest part of the face, never into the chinking or the groove between courses. Chinking seals a wall; it holds nothing.
• Pilot holes sized for the lag. Dry hardwood splits if the hole is too small and a lag can shear off in it; a hole that is too generous gives up thread. Both are avoidable with the right bit.
• Clear of the checks. Most logs develop long seasoning cracks along their length. A fastener set in a check is sitting in a split, not in solid wood, and it gets moved to good timber.
• No need to go through. Solid log takes a lag happily. There is no reason to through-bolt a wall of this kind for an ordinary television.

The screws on the television side are a separate matter entirely, and the ones in the mount's box are not always the right length for a given set — our guide to what size screws a TV wall mount needs covers that half of it.

5. The Cables, With No Cavity to Hide Them

Here is the trade-off for all that strength: a solid log wall has nothing inside it. There is no stud bay to drop a cable down and no hollow to fish, so the in-wall route we use on framed walls is not what a log wall is asking for.

What works on log is surface work done neatly. A paintable raceway run down the face, or stained to match rather than painted, follows the wall and disappears better than people expect. Where the room allows it, a run tucked behind existing trim, a corner board, or down into the baseboard is tidier still. Some log rooms have a framed partition or a chase somewhere nearby, and if there is one we will use it.

A raceway is quoted on sight rather than priced from the list, because the run is different in every room. The same goes for power: tell us where the nearest outlet is when you book, or send a photo of the wall, and we will tell you what that spot takes before the day.

6. Is It Actually a Log Wall?

Worth two minutes before any of the above, because plenty of walls that read as log are not. Half-log siding and log-look paneling over a conventional framed wall are common, and so is a modern timber-framed room with ordinary infill walls between the posts.

The giveaways are at the openings and the corners: a solid log wall is deep, so window and door jambs are unusually thick, and the courses continue through an outside corner in a visible joint. Paneling sounds hollow when you knock between the courses and the jamb depth is ordinary. If it turns out to be boards on a framed wall, the studs behind are what matter and our guide to mounting on shiplap and wood walls is the one to read.

What It Costs

Installation is priced by screen size: 32" to 55" is $129, 65" is $139, 75" is $229 and 85" and up is $279. That covers mounting the TV, leveling, basic cable management and all wall hardware. The mount is separate — flat $35, tilting $45, full-motion $125 for sets between 32" and 55", which is a special order rather than a same-day item — or we will fit one you already own at no mount charge.

Service is free within 20 miles of Lexington, and Richmond is our home base so it is free there too. Beyond that it is $35 to Frankfort, Paris and Harrodsburg, $45 to Danville and Berea, and $65 to Somerset, scheduled in advance rather than same-day. Add-ons are priced separately when you want them: soundbar mounting $40, smart TV setup $35, old TV removal $30 and powerline adapter setup $99.