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!

Your TV stand comes under close inspection from visitors to your home whether you realise it or not. More often than not these days, when you buy a new TV it comes with a free, mass produced, cheap TV stand. These are only to get you home and up and running. You need to replace this low quality stand with something beautiful, something that's going to get visitors attention for all the right reasons. A contemporary TV stand is lovely piece of furniture that's going to get people talking. How long do you sit and watch your TV every night? Probably for a few hours and for those few hours you want your television to be surrounded something that's well designed and pleasant to the eye.

Of course a contemporary TV stand isn't cheap, in some cases they can cost a small fortune. What are you getting for your money? Well some might say “Buy it cheap, buy it twice” this is certainly true of some TV stands out there, but not these. They are of the highest quality and penned by top designers, to look fantastic and to last for many many years. It might cost a lot initially but you are going to be getting your money worth as the years pass by. Even in few years down the line, when it comes to redecorate and you decide that you want a new style for you home, one that maybe your TV stand no longer matches, then that initial purchase of a quality item is going to come back and re pay you. These designs will always have a place in someone's home and therefore they are going to keep their resale value up.

Paying out for the more expensive item may seem pointless or excessive right now, but in years to come you are going to be glad that you went with a quality item over the cheap one. There's a design out there for everyone's tastes, maybe it isn't new, it could be second hand, not that it matters it's still going to last you many years!