Our speakers are inside the walls and have a mesh grille (for lack of other words) that were painted the same color as the walls to blend in. I never notice them, but they are there. I wouldn't like the black bats either.

ohhh. can I sympathize!!! When I came home one day to find my husband had taken a saw to the entire room for wiring and such to add the "silver modern" speakers I wanted to die..or kill him....one of the two. I have gotten used to them and he did a good job of fixing everything and they turned out great. I have just gotten off work and don't really know how to post pictures. I will try to figure it out tomorrow or I can email them to you if you have an email on your page. These men...now I am dealing with him and his aquarium project that is driving me nuts :>)

My husband did the same thing. But we have Albino Bats. White speakers on a tan wall. It looks awful this way. He's got to figure out a different way. This is a talented man, he's built some awesome furniture for our home but this speaker thing is by far his worst.

{{!gwi}}

Marti.
Try and work the speakers into the decor, where it is not so noticeable. For instance, over a door and hide the wire behind the molding. We have another set of speakers over the curio, and the speakers behind the sofa are tucked by the windows. As long as you don't have the wires running down the wall, you'll get use to the speakers.

Hey, I like bats and have been trying to attract them to our yard for years with a nice cozy bat house :)

Here's a pair of our bats over the door mantle. :)
I think their kinda cute and most definitely in love!

I assume he put the crown molding back and removed it so he could install wires??

Here's ours. I started to paint them when I painted the room, but there is white behind the mesh and I was afraid it would come out a splotchy mess. I don't notice them any more, even tho they're white.
{{!gwi}}

I really hate to show pictures of this room. It currently has all our den furniture & dining furniture, plus the contents of both dd's apartments, so it looks more like a crowded 2nd hand furniture store than a livable room.

Yes, dh planned on replacing the crown molding but I stopped him after I saw the speakers. I asked if he could put them in the walls. No, they are outside walls, insulation & all that. Ceilings? No, the sound wouldn't project the right way. Lower, like next to the floor? No. Paint them? No.

There has got to be another answer. These bats catch my attention every time I bother to walk in the room. If they were white & in the corners so they looked like part of the molding, I would even like them better - I think.

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

Wonder if we could wire the speakers to the fan blades; now *thats* surround sound and you wouldn't see them!

This really isn't the best picture but you can see the small white boxes. We really should paint them the same color as the wall but I guess they don't really bother me much. They are up pretty high though, maybe that helps??

This is an old pic before we put in the rest of the window treatments.

Yep, we have black speakers on the wall and always have. I just sprinkle a little black around the rest of the room.

Surround sound is imprtant to us. Anyway, the new 'trend' is to show your TV instead of hiding it, so why not show the speakers, as well.

Budget wasn't available to have them hidden, so they're out in all their glory.

Hmmm, I don't mind the speakers anyone has posted here. They don't seem as conspicuous to me as the ones dh put up. Maybe it's just me. I still think if they were white next to the white crown molding, I wouldn't mind as much.

We have the "black bats" in our gathering room too, which is where the television is located. When my husband talked of installing the surround system, we looked at some of the new ones on the market. I really liked the Sony system, where the speakers are slightly larger than silver dollars. The sound quality was not that great. The Bose systems weren't either, unless you went in the 2K range, which we were not willing to do.

We looked at the wall installed speakers, but neither one of us wanted to cut large holes in the walls when later we might want to change out the speakers.

My DH and I discuss all the improvements and even decor together. In only two rooms of our home however, do his desires carry more weight than mine-the office and our gathering room. I get my way in the rest of the house because he trusts my opinion and is pleased with the choices I've made.

I nixed a television in our formal living room and the master bedroom. I sometimes gave him choices among the fabrics and furniture in our home; knowing no matter which he chose, I would love either one because I had found them first.

However, in the office he puts whatever he wants on the walls. I chose the fabric for the daybed and drapes, and the bookcase. We chose the file cabinet together, and we are still looking for a new desk that fits our decor but is what he likes best. (and I am the one who works from home!)

In the gathering room he chose the television (52" flat screen) and I furnished the rest of the room as I wanted. So...to make a long story short, he got his way on the surround system. The speakers look exactly like yours except the center speaker is mounted below the flat screen on the wall. I also wanted to think about getting new white ones, but they looked cheap to us. We decided to stay with the Polk Audio black ones we already owned on our light neutral walls with white crown molding.

When he first put them up, I didn't like them at all. But I loved my husband more, and guess what? Now that they've been up a little over a month, I really don't pay that much attention to them any more. You may very well find the same thing for you, once you stop looking at them all the time (my eyes were always drawn to them in the beginning). Our room is only 12x12, no where near as large as yours appears.

Like Parma said, surround sound is important to us, for watching films as well as college football. We chose the quality of sound over the look. It's what works for us, but each person is different.

Once you get your room decorated as you like it, you may find you don't mind the speakers as much as you do now.

Since he bought the television and mounted the speakers while he was home for 20 days of leave (first in a year), the wires are still hanging down from where he tested the system. I'll REALLY love it once the electrician runs the wires and moves the component equipment to the back corner of the room! LOL

Hope this...