By Gene and Katie Hamilton

In synch with new streamlined furniture designs, today's flat panel TV screens replace yesterday's bulky media cabinet with mounting devices that suspend them from the ceiling or attach them to a wall. The mounting devices make TV screens barely a distraction, eliminating the need for a piece of furniture to house it. The designs for some of these units are so streamlined that they conceal the cables, and some allow the displays to rotate and tilt.

An installer will charge $268 to install a heavy-duty swiveling ceiling or wall mount for a large plasma or LCD screen, which includes labor and material. You can buy the device for $180 and install it, saving 32 percent for your effort. That's assuming you have carpentry experience and tools, and that you understand the wiring and cable systems for a flat panel TV system. If you have doubts about your ability to do the job, consider hiring the installation service where you buy the system or find an installer online.

Here's a selection of TV wall mounts from Echogear.

That sums it up. Knowing the average cost to mount a flat panel TV lets you compare doing it yourself with what you can expect to pay a contractor. To customize the cost to where you live add your ZIP Code in the cost box.

Improvement and Repair Cost Updated 2018

The cost and time data is generated by averaging labor and material data from annually updated cost books used by contractors and refined by the authors' experience remodeling 13 houses. They are authors of 20 home improvement books and Do It Yourself or Not, a weekly column syndicated by Tribune Content Agency. The national cost can be adjusted by ZIP Code.