TV Cabinets
February 2nd, 2010
A big part of a person’s house in the twenty first century is the television and where it is in the house. For many people, they design their living room around the TV. “Where am I going to put the couch? I want to be able to see the TV.” Because of the importance of the TV, there is an equally large importance for the cabinet that the TV goes into. A cabinet can protect the TV, add more design features to the room, and keep clutter, such as DVDs and TV accessories from getting lost. However, if you don’t pick the right TV cabinet, you could wind up with a cabinet that either breaks under the weight of the TV or looks awful in the room.
The first step when deciding to go out and purchase a cabinet for a TV is to know what the size of the TV is. You want to know three things: the height, width, and depth of the TV. If it is a flat panel screen, it’s much easier because there isn’t a huge tube that needs to be accounted for when purchasing the cabinet. However, if it is an incredibly large television, such as a fifty incher, finding cabinets might be difficult because of how big the TV is. In this case, it might be a requirement to get a custom made cabinet that offers all the necessary compartments to keep your living room clean.
So, if getting a custom TV cabinet is the goal, what are some things that you’ll need for the TV to keep the room clean? Here’s a list:
- A big enough gap for the television to fit. It would be awful if the TV didn’t fit and you had to either get a new cabinet or purchase a new TV.
- Space for DVDs and other small accessories. This can either go on the sides of the TV behind cabinet doors or it can do underneath the TV.
- Space for DVD, Blue Ray, etc. players. Since there are cables involved with these, it is important to keep them relatively close to the TV. Commonly, you find them above the television with the cables hanging down the back or you find them underneath with the wires going up to connect to the television.
Now that you have decided on a lot of the design, you need to decide whether you want to go with wood or metal for the cabinet. While metal still is relatively limited and people don’t typically think of it as a cabinet material, it is increasingly becoming accepted for metal to be the material of choice for cabinets. However, if you decide to go with wood, you’re going to need to determine what type of wood, what finish you want to go on the wood, and finally, what hardware you’ll want to go on the doors. As mentioned in other articles, designing cabinets requires a lot of planning and picking the right components makes the perfect door.
If doing a custom made TV cabinet isn’t your cup of tea, simply check out your local furniture store with all the specifications of your TV size. Chances are, they’ll be able to find something that fits what you want. It might not be exactly what you want it to be, but you can always make changes to it yourself by refacing the cabinet doors. However, one tip of advice: make sure the TV cabinet fits in the room. You don’t want to get distracted by the cabinets when watching TV. That defeats the purpose of the cabinet in some ways.