TV Stand
Buying a TV stand to match your television is often overlooked in terms of importance. Not only does your TV stand have to look good, it has to be suited to the size and style of your new TV, be it 32”, 50” or even bigger, as well as the weight, is it a brand new state of the art, light weight, thin LCD TV, a slightly older, slightly heavier LCD TV or a good old CRT television.
Design and Material
Design is normally number one on a buyers list when they shop for a new TV stand. How it looks and what material its made of are of great importance to how the stand is going to suit the room its going to be occupying for the foreseeable future. The last thing we want is for the stand to be totally out of place, a modern black glass TV stand in an old country cottage, or the opposite, a traditional oak TV stand in a ultra modern apartment. Clearly this is what we're trying to avoid. As unlikely as it seems, the materials and the construction even have an effect on picture quality. There are many of different details which we will be having a closer look at later.
Dimensions
While considering the design of your new TV stand you have to take into account the space that the stand is going to be occupying. If your 1 bedroom apartment isn't particularly big do you really want a 60” TV with a matching stand taking up all of the space in your living room? Of course the dimensions of the stand have to match that of the TV. A stand too narrow for your TV and you risk having your lovely TV end up on the floor when the stand buckles under the weight. Choose a stand that's too big and you lose out on all important living space. Although having a stand too big for your TV will make it the focal point of your room, should you wish it.
You have to take depth into account here as well, not so much with new LCD TVs, but with older CRT televisions you don't want the deep TV hanging off the front or back of the stand and risk it falling off, its fairly unsightly too.
Features
Most if not all LCD TVs come with the ability to be mounted on a wall, this is a potential feature of many designs. To have the effect of being wall mount but without drilling holes in your wall and having wires running all over the place is ideal. It also leaves you plenty of space on the TV stand for your DVD/Bluray player, games console Etc. Some stands come with multiple adjustable shelves which may be a bonus for you, maybe the amplifier you have for your surround sound system is taller than the average DVD player or maybe its the centre speaker of the surround sound system itself that's tall, will they fit on your stand? If the shelves can be moved it certainly will!
Another potential useful feature could be casters or wheels on the bottom of the stand. Perhaps you're having friends over for a party and the TV needs to be out of the way, either moved across the room or moved out the room entirely. Casters as going to save you a lot of trouble, moving the TV and everything that goes along with it in one move!
Picking The Right Home Theater Seating
If you have been giving some thought to installing a home theater system then you really need to give some thought to getting the right seats as well. A lot of people when they think about installing a home cinema they just think about the big screen and the surround sound system, but if you want to get the complete cinema experience you need to get home theater seating as well. I'm saying this like I know you have got the money and space to install such seats, but if you do have the cash available and the space then you really should be giving it some more thought.
There are a number of reasons why you should want to install home theater seating, not only is it going to give you the full cinema experience but it is going to offer you a lot more comfort than most seating that is available. These days films are getting longer and longer all the time, so if you are going to be sitting in front on your screen for three hours or more at a time, then you really want to be using the most comfortable you possibly can. Not only that but these chairs are going to have features that your average arm chair isn’t going to have, like built in heating or cooling to keep your body as comfortable as possible, loads of cinema type features, like built in speakers to make you feel like you are right in the middle of all the action and also things like built in cup holders, even miniature fridges to keep your drinks cool, perfect for drinking. As well as a number of other features. But these things fall into insignificance compared to the last thing, showing off to your friends. There’s nothing quite like unveiling a new boys toy to your friends and see the look of amazement, excitement and jealousy on their faces.
Choosing Home Theater Seating
When it comes to choosing what home theater seating furniture you are going to use, you need to give some thought to what the room is going to be used for. It could just be a family room for watching movies, it might be a place for all your friends to come round and watch sports, or it could be a gaming room.
If you are going to mainly be using the room for family then you are really only going to need enough seats for your family, plus maybe one or two more in case there are visitors. Because you don’t need to buy as many seats it means that you might be able to afford to spend a little bit extra on your seats, so that you can get a higher quality leather finish, or a thicker, more comfortable stuffing, or perhaps buy some of the extras that are mentioned above like refrigerated cup holders, heated seats, built in speakers and so on, and maybe even some foot stools as well, for some extra comfort.
If the room is going to be used mainly as a mans room, for watching sports or something along those lines, then you are going to need to get some extra seats than if it was just a family room. This might mean that you need to spend a little bit less on each seat. The number of seats you buy will depend on how far your budget will stretch, you might need to leave out some of those extra features that are mentioned above, like heated seats, cooling drink holders and so on. You might want to consider spare seats as well, in case you have extra visitors. Maybe something that can be stored away when they are not in use, like bean bag seats, or fold away chairs. I've used bean bag furniture before and I really like them, I find them pretty comfortable and can sit in them for a good length of time. The fold away chairs might be a bit less comfortable, but they are better than having nothing at all.
If the room is going to be used as a gaming room, then you have some other options to go for regarding your home theater seating. Rather than going for the big leather armchair you could instead opt to use gamer chairs. These chairs can sometimes look fairly similar to other theater chairs they have some extra features. They will have the same built in speakers and sometimes they come with chilled cup holders, but the biggest feature that they have is built in vibrations functions, just like the controllers we use today have, giving you that added sense of reality. They can also be really comfortable, if you are like me then you will spend hours and hours sitting in front of the computer at the weekends playing games, so you really do need that extra comfort.
If you have had a look at the price of theater seating you will have seen that it can be quite expensive, and for a lot of us it can be far too expensive to justify buying. But there are places where you can get discount home theater seating, most of the stores you have looked at will no doubt have sales going on a certain times of the year where they try to get rid of old stock that hasn’t sold. Times like this are the best times to shop. Also right now many people are not buying luxury items all that often, so there is every chance that you could walk into a store that sells home theater seating furniture and because you a buying quite a few pieces of furniture you could demand quite a bit of power and get a fair discount on what you want.
As you can see there is a bit for you to think about, don’t be put off though, its not really that hard a choice to make. All you need to do is figure out how the room is going to be used, how much money you have available to spend and what kind of features you want to have and then you can work from there. Once you have your home theater all set up you are going to be so happy with it you wont want to leave it!