TV Furniture and Entertainment Wall Units

TV furniture takes many different forms, ranging from full entertainment wall units to single TV cabinets. Your choice will likely depend upon the space you have available, although many people prefer a wall unit to a single stand-alone cabinet.
The reason for the popularity of entertainment wall units is simply that they take up wall space, and have minimum impact on living space. They also accommodate more than just the TV, and while it could be looked on as TV furniture with display options added, most regard it as a wall display unit, and perhaps bookcase, that includes room for the TV! There are two ways of looking at it.
If we look at individual pieces of TV furniture first, we can then see how that might be expanded in a more general form of entertainment furniture or leisure unit, so as to make the best use of the wall space you have available. Very few homes have no wall space free, and if even if not there is usually some form of existing wall furniture that can be replaced to incorporate television furniture.
Traditional TV furniture involves a simple stand or console that holds the TV on top, and with room for some boxes and DVDs on the storage shelves below. The shelves can be behind glass doors to keep out dust or remain open. Usually, such consoles are available in a range of widths according to the width of your TV set.
More intricate are TV consoles in the form of chests. There is a wide variety of these, fitted with cupboards and drawers, or a combination of glass doors and open shelving to accommodate not only the TV equipment and boxes, but also hi-fi equipment. These are still individual pieces of TV furniture that can be situated anywhere in the room – either against a wall or in an island situation, a common position being a bay window or alcove.
However, entertainment units are more substantial, and more than simply TV furniture. These can be built yourself by combining various pieces from a collection, designed to be used just for that purpose – the ‘sectionals’ of wall furniture if you like. These entertainment units will generally consist of a TV hutch, to contain the flat screen, with a cabinet below for the accessories and DVDs and so on.
To each side would be more cabinetry to house a hi-fi unit, perhaps some of the speakers and possibly an iPod dock, also attached to the speakers. Many people use the same set of surround speakers for all their equipment, though that would depend on the quality of the speakers.
Then, space permitting, there would be display shelves for curios or ornaments and perhaps even bookshelves. Now you can possibly see where a TV stand can be incorporated into your wall space, even if you have existing wall furniture in place. You could combine that or change it. Most people would purchase from new, and if you choose the right range of furniture you can do that in stages.
The TV furniture could be acquired first, and then you could expand the rest around it as you could afford it. It is better building slowly using good quality furniture than buying an entire wall-full of cheap furniture at once. The high quality pieces will match each other no matter when you purchase them. That’s one of the benefits you pay for when buying high quality entertainment or television furniture. This year’s purchase matches last year’s.
The Paula Deen Down Home entertainment console is a case in point. You can build this 126W x 84H inches unit from four pieces: a console, a TV hutch and two side display units. You could add to this over time to extend it over the whole of one wall if you wanted to. The same is true of large numbers of entertainment units: start with one piece of TV furniture, then slowly add to it until you have a complete entertainment center you can be proud of.
It might take time, but it will be worth it in the end. Of course, if you have the money you can do that all at once, and because you are building it up yourself you can have exactly what your particular room needs. Some people even put the hutch on a rotating bezel, so it rotates 180 degrees, with the flat screen one side and a display unit the other. You can have one side showing or the other depending on whether you are watching TV or not. But then you need room behind for the rotation!
There are many different types of TV furniture available on the market, and it’s best to check out what is online and then visit the showroom. That means you should choose the website of a furniture company that has a showroom close to your home. You can then see it in real life and decide if it’s for you or not.