Posted on: January 26, 2007
The World Is Flat
TV size have been getting slimmer for some time, and the sleek-minded consoles finally are catching up. Say goodbye to the chunky entertainment centers and hello to furniture fit for your flat screen.
By Kate Sullivan
CTW Features
Behind closed doors: New hutch-style consoles with wide openings and accordion-style doors have replaced the traditional TV armoire. Here, Hooker Furniture’s Cityscape.
Say goodbye to the boob tube. The square picture box will soon join the Walkman and the VCR in the electronics graveyard, its plot being dug by sleekier, sexier and less-chunky flat-panel TVs. But as flat-panels slide – easily, we might add – into the living room, what becomes of the traditional television stand? You might be ready for this visual upgrade, but is your living room ready? Here’s how to bridge 20th-century technology with your traditional tastes.
Walking the aisles of electronics stores like Best Buy and Circuit City, you’ll find the slim flat-panels occupying the bulk of the TV floor space. What’s the motive behind the flat fad? For Kim Shaver, vice president of marketing communication for Hooker Furniture, Martinsville, Va., it’s the appreciation by both genders that makes these TVs such a hot seller. “For women, it’s a design statement. For men it’s impressive. For both, it’s hip, cool and sleek.”
They may be modern and sleek, showing everything from Oprah to the Oakland A’s in high definition, but what does it do to your home style? “The flat-panel and flat-screen television revolutionized the landscape of the American living room,” Shaver says.
Flat-panels, generally no more than 5 inches thick, may carry only a little girth but come full of style and social status. For consumers, this means more than just a technology upgrade.
Upon arriving home from the electronics store, much to your chagrin, you may find yourself with a makeshift TV stand after failing to fit your new widescreen flat-panel TV into your cubelike entertainment center.
Don’t worry, though, because you’re not alone.
Take comfort knowing that computer-savvy consumers worldwide seek advice from others who share their plight. Blogs dedicated to this design dilemma fill up cyberspace. From apartmenttherapy.com to Yahoo! Answers, a quick “Help! What are furniture options for my new flat-panel TV that won’t make my living room look like the set of Star Trek?” results in endless suggestions in a matter of minutes. But Web surfers be aware, while your inquiry might open the door to advice, it won’t give you the knowledge and direction you need.
There are three key criteria to consider when selecting a piece of furniture to accommodate a flat-panel TV, says Peter Howson, brand manager of Becker Designed, Inc., Chantilly, Va. Shoppers must check for accessibility, ventilation and day-to-day functionality. “It is important that the design makes it easy for the user to get to the back of the cabinet for initial setup and for future equipment upgrades,” Howson says. Features like hidden wheels and removable back panels make maintenance manageable.
To prolong the expiration date of your entertainment equipment, a piece of furniture to hold your high-tech TV also must provide proper ventilation. “Heat is a major issue for keeping high-performing equipment, like the flat-screen, working at peak levels.” The additional cable boxes and digital-video recorders that often accompany the high-definition TVs all emit heat and raise temperatures.
The piece of furniture also must be easy to live with. Traditional armoire-style cabinets with pocket doors have long reigned as the most popular furniture for housing old-school TV gear with smaller screens. Galleon-sized armoires stored the entertainment gear out of sight and out of mind.
Now you see it: A lift mechanism controlled by a remote raises a flat-screen TV to viewing height and lowers it back into the cabinet when not in use. Here, Lane Furniture’s Coastal Classics cabinet.
New hutch-style consoles, successor to the armoires, are designed with wider openings to accommodate the widescreen TVs. The new Cityscape hutch from Hooker furniture, for example, is outfitted with wrap-around doors that fold neatly to the outside of the hutch, accordion-style. Simpler console tables designed to display flatscreen TVs may integrate wire management into the design.
While the armoire may be the hallmark of the old-school TV era, it’s the console that makes headlines today. Those who purchase a new large, flat-panel “trophy TV” seem to want them on display in plain view. “Consumers are not necessarily concerned with hiding the TV like they used to be,” says Christie Furman, an interior designer in New York. “If designing for a contemporary house, the TV becomes part of the flow of a minimal, sleek and clean room. In a more traditional setting the TV would be surrounded by shelving and more furniture.”
A freestanding console satisfies those with modern tastes while a console/hutch combination flanked by shelves and cubbies meets the needs of a more conservative, traditional consumer. No longer a slave to having a wall for a TV to be against, today’s flat-panels can float in a room. A hideaway console with a lift mechanism reveals a flat panel TV with the touch of a button, ideal for the end of a bed or in a living room that also doubles as a formal room for entertaining For console-free fans, flat-panel screens can come framed and, for art aficionados, be hung like a masterpiece over a fireplace mantle.
A modern twist to the television doesn’t have to turn your home upside down. Mix your technology upgrade with your personal style for a look that’s picture-perfect. Cherry wood consoles for conservatives and steel or metallic for minimalists. When it comes to your new TV, styles may be flat, but for your living room, it’s anything but boring.
