I have conquered my wall!
I was concerned that I had wasted money on getting my new speakers and after a couple weeks of thinking I realized that I could make it work without any real modifications.
As you can see from the pic below I had NO extra space between my studs for my speaker placement. The only other thing I might do is use my Dremel and make a couple small reliefs in the studs so that I can engage the little clamps that hold the speakers in place, but the hole is tight enough, I don't know if it will be necessary.
You can see the mostly finished product below, all I have left to do is paint, but since I am changing the wall color it'll be a little bit before I jump into that part of the project.
Unfortunately I was stymied on being able to run the wires behind my trim along the floor. Sigh, I don't know what size of sill plate they used but it's not a 2x4, so I'll have to think about that one again too. I'm thinking I might use a second piece a trim above the first a little ways, maybe make it look like it's architectural if I can. About the only thing I can think of.
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It would seem that every damn time I try to do something in my house I find some random thing that keeps me from doing so. Sigh. When I tried to mount my television on the wall I discovered that the studs were too far apart where I wanted to place it. I had to span the space between the two studs that were in the best place (read: closest to the center of the wall) so that I would have something to attach the mount to. So now I have these horrid lengths of 2x4 stuck on the wall. The tv mostly covers them, but from above (which you can see from the walkway upstairs) and from the side they are plainly visible. I realized that the studs were spaced farther apart then normal because of the AC vent that is in the wall. (for the uninitiated: most studs in residential construction are 16" on center- the two I needed were over 2 feet apart so the mount wouldn't reach).
After getting my new couch I decided that it is just too damn cluttered in the room and along that wall. I decided to de-clutter by replacing my current speakers (they are big floor speakers that had belonged to my father and sound really good but are a bit old, believe it or not I'm pretty sure they are older than I am- BIG EYES!) with some in-wall speakers.
Installing in-wall speakers does not concern me too much, cut a hole in the wall for the speaker and cut a hole in the bottom behind the floor molding to hide the wires and voila. Done. BUT my house had other ideas. First I had the studs I had to deal with to mount the tv, now I have to fight an over abundance of studs! My first thought was that the idiots were making up for the lack of studs in the middle of the wall. But then I thought that maybe it's to support the walkway above. I don't really know which of these is accurate. But regardless, I don't appear to have space enough (where I need it) to mount one of my damn speakers. All I need is 12" or so. Talk about frustrating. I may be able to get away with 8" but I am not even sure I have that. The speakers need to be 6-8' apart, (mine will be closer to 10' and the tv needs to be centered between them) so my options for placement are limited. the thing that sucks, the left hand speaker has plenty of space, the right... I have 4' to work with, and believe it or not, I have no option. there are that many damn studs or some other random obstacle. Sigh. Please see pic below for reference, the red are what I believe are studs.
I'm gonna see if I can squeeze out 8" since that is the bare minimum I can work with. We will see.