Jaime is tackling the classic "big TV vs. tasteful decor" problem: I need the help of you and your readers. My husband and i just bought a loft and moved in this week. The one decorating decision he insisted was off limits to me was his choice of television. He bought an insane 50" plasma TV and he is in love. I need some sort of furniture item to put the TV on. Our place is a bit Jonathan Adler (Regency chairs), a bit industrial loft (cement floors), with some MidCentury modern (Platner coffee table). We'd like to get something for against the wall to house this giant thing and also be under $2000. Originally we were going to do built ins with shelving around it but we can't afford. Do you have any ideas??
(Note: Include a pic of your problem and your question gets posted first.
Email questions and pics with QUESTIONS in subject line to: LA(at)apartmenttherapy(dot)com)
Link To All Good Questions
Jaime, our recommendation is to forgo the huge piece of furniture and just
wall mount that 50" bad boy of movie watching goodness. We have our own 42" LCD HDTV wall mounted (a Samsung also) and it's at the perfect viewing height and distance. We wall mounted our set ourselves, and we hid the cables and cords using a white flexible wire hiding plastic tube that blends into the wall. But since you own, you could actually drill a whole into the wall and snake everything through the wall to create a wireless effect which we can only dream of as renters.
Your other choice is to find a low level credenza or console (we cringe when we see people mount their HDTV's too high in spaces such as over the fireplace) with enough width for the unit to comfortably and safely sit upon. A favourite of our's is the Sussex Low Console from Design Within Reach. You don't want to house your plasma in a fully enclosed space, since the unit will produce a lot of heat; excessive heat is not recommended for any electronics, but especially one worth several thousands of dollars.
Perhaps one of our readers with a large set and large solution could share their recommendations?
Not just slap it on the wall, but slap it on the wall and buy or make a huge huge ornate picture frame in the same proportions as the TV that is about two inches bigger, and mount that around the TV. That way you get the regency feel back.
If you are mounting it on a concrete wall, ever so popular in LA lofts in reclaimed buildings, making all the wires disappear is not an option. Gather them together and channel them to their outlets in aluminum tubing. Pain that the same color as the wall to make it less prominent. Make sure the wall contrasts highly with the frame, like white wall / black frame / black TV, or blue wall / gold frame / black TV. Nobody will notice the tubing with cables.
view FJ!!'s profile
look for a long low credenza to put it on. my boyfriend has a 42" girlfriend-- er, i mean television, and it looks great. personally, i think its silly to try to hide your TV. im sure it was really expensive and most televisions look simple and sleek these days. no doubt you'll use it all the time and hiding it is usually just a big hassle.
just put it on a great piece of furniture and flank it with some stunning lamps or something.
view my little apartment's profile
Mount it on the wall and put a nice big ornate picture frame around it.
Or, try one of these, at Costco of all places:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Productgroup.aspx?Prodid=11227678&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=&lang=en-US
The pictures don't quite do it justice -- it's very well-built (and heavy!), and has a gorgeous sort of "antique-black" finish to it that doesn't show up in the photos. We stumbled across it at Costco after weeks of looking for something we liked (and something still in our price range) and always coming up short -- and instantly liked this one.
view davecobb's profile
I had a custom sideboard made for my television at Shelter about nine years ago. The piece has held up beautifully, but I really wish I had made something that hid the television completely. I have a 40" lcd, and even though these are far nicer to look at than an old tube television, it's still just a big block of shiny plastic in the middle of my living room. Given that, my suggestion is to have a custom armoire style housing built for the television and your electronics. Bahay in Culver City (bahayhome.com) is one place that does reasonably priced custom furniture. Just draw up what you are looking for (or show them some pictures) and they can tailor something to your needs. Keep in mind that a media armoire for an lcd does not need to be massive. Just make sure you measure everything that goes into the armoire before you order.
If your taste runs more toward european style media and wall systems like those at Poliform or Ligne Roset, you might want to head over to Pomp Home (also on Main Street in Culver City) and take a look at a modular system called Regolo made by italian furniture manufacturer Jesse. (You can see some pictures at the Jesse website jesse.it). The configurations for this system are almost limitless - going through all the possibilities can be a bit overwhelming. The upside is that you will have a media unit about half (or less) the price of something from Poliform or Ligne Roset. The downside is that it is made in Italy, so if you order tomorrow, you probably won't have it in your home until the holidays. Bo Concept in Santa Monica also has something similar, but I personally don't think it looks as nice as the Jesse Regolo system.
view RichardinLA's profile
Mount it to the wall and mount a faux fireplace mantel under it.
view coristyle's profile
before you figure out how to hang it take it back and exchange it for an LCD tv. that plasma is a power sucking monster that will not last that long anyway. plasmas over heat, have problems with images etching into the screen etc etc. an LCD could last you 40 years and even a huge one will consume 3 times less energy than a regular tv as opposed to the 3 times as much that a plasma will. also you will save money on cooling bills because LCD tvs don't generate the massive ammount of heat that plasmas do.
sorry to be so preachy, but it is one of the easiest green things one can do, and one with no real down side.
once that's done look into the muro media storage thing at DWR. http://www.dwr.com/productdetail.cfm?id=9202
it is super easy and cheap to knock off if you are handy, and looks great.
view abigailm's profile
We have a 60" rear projection* and put it on a low and unassuming but lovely credenza from Blueprint on Beverly.
*I know... it's also the first thing you see when you walk in the door. Our neighbors are constantly commenting on shows they've seen us watching. But the bf loves it and let me tell you, Discovery Channel in HD has never looked radder.
view kraft's profile
I don't have any suggestions because I'm having the same dilemma, but can I just say a big thank you to AT for including a post about 'designing' a TV into the living room?
It seems that every well designed living room in magazines does not have a TV. But in reality most people have bigger and bigger TVs in their living room making them hard to hide. And with most readers on this site living in small places, big TVs become big design challenges. I'd love to see photos of what some of you have done!
Right now we have our 40" LCD sitting on top of a lovely, low, wide (6'), solid teak entertainment centre I found on eBay. The TV sits too low in the room for the tall ceilings so I'd like to mount it on the wall and use the entertainment centre to display some nice items, but with concrete walls (like Jamie) hiding the wires will difficult.
view stoat's profile
Yeah... its a favorite when it cost as much, if not more than the TV :)
The Costco unit looks a bit less than modern.
As for the TV itself, have you considered a projector and your wall?
Cheers
view SeanG's profile
For fans of midcentury modern there are lots of ways to repurpose credenza's for entertainment purposes. I think the pieces from this period are perfect for component storage, just make sure the ventilation is there in the back.
I recently saw a great idea on an HGTV espisode where a large floor mirror was mounted on wheels and a track attached to a shelf. Just wheel the mirror in front of the TV when not in use. Of course this was with a TV in an entertainment unit.
view techgirllaura's profile
check out BDI ....
view bud smith's profile
Jaime, my husband as well fell in love with a plasma 50" tv a few years back. In his apartment, where the room had no hanging wall space (Victorian home with wood panels) we bought a metal stand which was not very offensive and stored the subwoofer as he had a monster speaker system as well (he is a television engineer). In our new home - and we own as well, we installed it straight on the wall and had a shelf below it installed (could not place a piece of furniture bcs the heater goes along the bottom of that wall). The shelf holds the dvd/cd player, the cable box and internet box. It is stuff that I wish was out of sight and a little credenza would be GREAT, but in my case if doesn't work bcs of the heater situation.
As far as PLASMA vs LCD, and this is from my engineer husband that all he does work with these things every single day. Yes, Plasma's use up more energy, they are sensitive, start burning in, etc etc. But the quality of plasma is much much better than lcd. It just is, if you place the two of them next to each other, you'll see. We have hd tv as well, and once you do that in a 50" plasma, there is no going back to anything else. - Oh, and we don't own a car, so that offsets our energy consumption on the plasma unit :-)
view Anusha73's profile
The reason you don't see tvs in magazines is because most of those homes have "family rooms" where they stash all the electronics in custom-built cabinets.
I know Maxwell doesn't approve of TVs in bedrooms, but that's where our behemoth tv is. We settle in every evening to watch an hour of tv. We never watch any other time of day. It becomes more like a private screening room if its somewhere other than the living room -- and you don't get sucked into watching crap when you have to go into another room to watch.
view Lisa Hunter's profile
Wall mount it and have a frame made to go around it, as others said, but, more than that, get a program or dvd (or maybe the tv even has it built in) to turn it into a digital picture frame when not in use.
Find a few, nice pictures that go with your decor and set them to change periodically. I'm not sure how green this is, maybe there's a lower power setting you can use while in this mode, but it makes it look as if there's just a nice picture on the wall instead of an offensive tv.
view shastaw2006's profile