Big Screen TV Room Design

Planning a home theater will require committing a considerable amount of space in your home (perhaps a whole room) for a dedicated viewing and listening environment. Because of the equipment that will be necessary, and the optimal placement of components, the room that will house the home theater may need to be altered somewhat. At the very least, it’s likely that you’ll need to need to change the placement of some of the furniture in the room.
Assuming that you’re willing to make the financial investment in a home theater system (and that investment can be considerable), one of the most critical elements for designing a listening room is advance planning.
Old-style boxy cube televisions needed wide shelves or special stands and created their own issues. But walk into electronics stores today and you will see TVs with a whole different look: screens that are rectangular rather than square, and television sets as flat as a painting instead of big and boxy.

Big screen TVs

With big screen televisions coming down in price all the time, more and more consumers are making them the center of their home entertainment systems. But bringing an extra-large screen into a living room or media room can create some design challenges, both from an aesthetic standpoint and with regard to proper screen placement.
And guess what? The new models won’t fit into “home entertainment centres” designed for the old-style cubes. So if you buy a new flat-screen model, you are going to have to do some retrofitting. These things are not plug-and-play. From a design perspective, you first have to decide where to put the TV. Then you’ve got to decide how you are going to mount it — on the wall, in a specially designed entertainment unit or framed by custom cabinetry. Placement is crucial because TVs these days are so much larger than they used to be, they demand a big wall and proper viewing distance.
Once you’ve decided where the TV is going to go, you need to figure out whether to put it on a stand, bolt it to the wall, buy special furniture or build custom cabinetry around it. Flat-screen TVs look cool indeed hanging up on the wall, almost like a work of art. But the problem with wall mounting is the wires.

Wires?

What wires? I don’t see any wires dangling beneath those wall-mounted units in the Sony Style catalogue. Can’t see the wires? That’s because they are hidden inside the walls. People don’t realize all the work that’s involved in getting a flat-screen TV to look good on a wall. Wires for cable and electricity have to be fished through the walls to new outlets behind the TV. So do wires for speakers that are mounted elsewhere on the wall. “The trend in the industry is in-wall speakers,” says Tsuyuki, adding, “Sixty per cent of people get surround-sound, plus a lot of TVs will work on a computer monitor.”
So it’s a lot of work to install them. The bill for installation of a flat-screen TV will include $350 to $450 in labour for such things as fishing wires through wall, plus $200 to $400 for cabling.
Wall mounting raises other issues some TVs look good on the wall. Some flat-screens even turn into a mirror when turned off. But they do have visual bulk. So for anyone who wants to minimize the visual impact of a large wall-mounted Tvyou can paint the wall behind it a dark colour so it sort of forces the TV to bleed back into the wall.

Few tips from a decorating expert

Consider room use.

When you’re going to design a room around a big screen TV, it’s important to consider how you’re going to use the room. For example: will it be exclusively used at night, or will you have to worry about glare from windows during the day?

Choose appropriate window treatments

If you expect to watch programming during the day, you’ll need window treatments you can close to block out the light. When you’re watching a game on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, you’ll need to be able to darken the room in order to make the most of the screen’s picture. Blinds or pull-down shades are good options.

Think about the wires

Avoid placing your TV where you will see the side or back of the unit immediately upon walking into the room. Cords and wires can be unsightly, and this is not a good design choice.

Run wires through the wall

One good idea for hiding wires, but still having access to them when you need to, is to knock a hole in the wall for the screen. This way, the wires can be accessed through a cabinet or closet in the opposite room, but will not be visible from the main room.

Be ready for the installer

And finally, try to work out the best placement for your screen before you call your cable or satellite provider. This way, you installer can run the appropriate wires right to your screen with a minimum of delay or fuss.