Projects – TV stand – Part 1

Our house has a slightly tapering living room, which rather limits the possible configurations of seating, TV etc.

Assuming you want a TV in the room, the two main options are to place it:

• by the stairs (where it’s very difficult to run aerial/sky leads and not much room)
• beside the front door (where the various power and data cables make an interesting booby trap for the unwary!)

In either position the TV will need to be angled about 45 degrees from the nearest wall to face into the room.

The standard TV units available commercially seem to fall into two main camps:

• rectangular, intended for up against a wall
• tapered/triangular, intended for use in a corner

The first type look weird and unbalanced when the TV is placed at much more than a 20 degree angle and even worse if they’re placed at right angles to the wall themselves.

Almost all the triangular units I’ve seen are either open at the back (like the one we have currently) or pretty ugly at the back (it’s meant to be in a corner up against a wall, right?).

I think there’s some scope to build my own unit, with a presentable rear face and enough space for all the wires, power adaptors etc that are nesting behind the current one to be out of sight.

I’ll also need to think about ventilation for the Sky+ box and games console.

As this unit will need to sit next to the storage under the window in the living room I’ll need to use similar materials and design features.