We put TVs up on living-room, bedroom and den walls in Cedar Mill, Beaverton, Bethany and the neighborhoods around them. On drywall the bracket is bolted into wood framing; on a fireplace it's anchored into sound brick or stone. You pick the height before we drill, and the low-voltage cords end up tidy or out of sight. We carry the empty carton out when we leave . Portland-area figures for November 2026 put one screen at $195 to $438 for labour . To get a number, send a picture of the wall plus the screen size.
Slava has 7 years of hands-on experience.
What does it cost to have a TV put on the wall near Portland?
This is the going rate homeowners around Portland pay for a single screen, taken from market data. It isn't drawn from jobs we've billed yet.
| Job (labour, no parts) | Low end | Middle | High end | Usual time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One TV hung on studs or brick, cords tidied | $195 | $315 | $438 | roughly 2 hours |
What pushes a job toward the low or the high end:
- what's behind the paint: framed drywall goes fastest, old plaster slower, masonry slowest;
- screen size and weight;
- the style of bracket, from a flat fixed one to a tilting one or a swing-out arm;
- whether cords are covered or run inside the wall;
- a spot above a mantel;
- doing two screens in one trip.
You buy the bracket separately; it's not part of those figures . For our hourly charge and the smallest visit we book, see pricing. If you're weighing an hourly quote against a flat one, this guide to handyman rates walks through both.
Which walls will hold a TV, and how is it fastened?
Gypsum board alone won't carry a heavy screen for long. The board crushes around a plastic or toggle anchor, and a swing-out arm multiplies the strain, because pulling it forward turns the TV's weight into a lever against the wall. That's why the bracket on drywall gets lag-bolted into the wood framing, and articulating arms never go up on hollow-wall anchors .
Framing doesn't care where your couch is. When the nearest studs sit off to one side, a wide flat bracket that bridges two of them, or one with a sliding plate, still puts the picture in the middle of the seating .
A lot of older homes here were finished in plaster on wood lath. Plaster chips and cracks if the bit spins too fast, so it's drilled gently, and locating the framing behind it takes patience a stud finder alone won't give you . Metal studs and concrete block get decided case by case, once we've seen your picture .
The housing on this side of the hills is mixed, plaster in some of the older places and sheetrock in most built since, so a picture tells us what we'll be drilling into. While you're at it, compare the bracket's weight limit and VESA bolt spacing with what your TV manual lists.
Is it OK to put the TV above a fireplace?
Usually, when the chimney face is brick or stone and the anchors bite into solid material . Plenty of 1950s and 60s ranch houses and split-level homes out here have a brick hearth wall facing the sofa .
Think about two things before deciding. Warmth rises off a wood stove, an open hearth or a gas insert, so look up the clearance in the TV's manual and in the fireplace's own manual. And above a mantel you'll be looking up, which is where a tilting or pull-down bracket earns its keep.
How do the cords get hidden?
A flat cord channel sticks to the wall and can be painted to match. The cords can drop straight behind a cabinet or console where nobody sees them. Or the HDMI, optical and speaker wires can travel inside the cavity, from a recessed low-voltage plate behind the screen to another one down by the baseboard .
We won't add a power receptacle, move one, or extend one, and that covers the behind-the-wall power kits that bring current up from a lower plug and stay in the cavity. Oregon's electrical statute (ORS 479.620) treats new wiring like that as an electrical installation, which takes a electrician. An owner can do it on the house they live in, but not on one that's listed for sale or rented to tenants. So if the TV needs a plug up high, an electrician sets it first, and we hang the screen after.
How high on the wall should the screen sit?
A good starting point is the center of the picture roughly level with your eyes from the couch . Mark the screen's outline with blue tape and live with it for a night. Look at it at your usual viewing hour too, since a window facing west can put a glare stripe across the glass in late afternoon.
In a bedroom or above a mantel the screen sits higher than in a family room, so a tilt bracket is worth it there.
Who fixes the wall after an old mount comes off?
When a bracket is coming down, we remove it, fill the bolt holes or patch any cord openings, and leave a surface that only needs paint . If the wall behind an old mount is torn up worse than that, it goes to our drywall repair work.
Is a wall-hung TV safer in an earthquake?
Oregon's Office of Emergency Management describes the Cascadia Subduction Zone as a 700-mile fault lying off the coast. A screen lagged into the framing is less likely to come down than one balanced on a dresser, though no one can promise how anything holds in a big quake. For bracing the house itself, see seismic retrofitting.