Our 36″ flatscreen tv sits atop a flimsy kitchen chair, because we don’t have a tv stand. I’m on winter break, and planned to spend it reading every George Saunders short story and learning to cook coq au vin. Instead, all day I’m on websites with names like racksandstacks.com, because I have obsessively entered a market niche:
People who love their big expensive tvs, but resist turning the living room into a television shrine.
Such as:
For years, I watched all my media on a 12″ laptop. My husband recently upgraded us, and I coolly resented the invading beast for weeks. Then we got the BBC Planet Earth dvds as a gift. It’s incredible: you can see every last crusted whisker on those Mongolian camels. Also, we get the Food Network, and I love the inappropriately excited sounds Paula Deen makes while pulling fruit cobbler out of the oven.
So the tv isn’t going back, and it needs a forever home. And it has special needs, like unattractive wires requiring easy access to plugs. But nature porn aside, the tv isn’t the focal point of our lives, and it shouldn’t occupy that place in our living room.
We want a tv stand that looks good as a piece of furniture first, and functions nicely as a media stand second. A design-forward front, with ventilated holes in the back. (Btw we rent, so wall mounting isn’t a good option.)
We want tons of storage, with drawers and cabinets to hide the dvd player/speakers/cables, and cds and dvds. (You want your collection to be 100% Criterion, but the truth is you own Total Body Yoga Makeover, plus three copies of “Rumours.” Put it away.)
And our little family is growing–a record player is on the way. The surface has to be longer than 70″ to fit it all.
Other unwanteds:
Here’s a best-of roundup, priced high to low. Each is wrong for us in some way (or costs more than a month’s rent), but they’re all gorgeous and might work for someone else. And frankly, I just needed this fulltime quest to result in something, if only a blog post.
The Seattle by Calligaris, an Italian company. Open-faced sandwich going on in the front, too bad. I was surprised to see Calligaris pieces sold online at both high-end sites like InMod.com, and low-end seeming places like racksandstacks.com. Online selling is such a zoo.
The Eldridge from Modloft. I love everything about this Knoll-ish piece--the flat walnut face, the slim steel legs--except the 59-inch width.
Hudson from Room & Board, basically a million dollars.
Even if you don't need a tv stand, even if you live in a yurt, go to Loadbearing.com and play with their create-your-own shelving maker. The colors are awesome and the units start affordably enough, but once you add drawers and shelves (and shipping), you end up selling your tv to buy the stand, so . . .
Again with the open face, plus no internal shelving. Also in three years will we cringe at the conceit of high-gloss white lacquer? We do live in Berkeley, not SoCal, and pearlescent doesn't jibe with the Arts and Crafts look so good.