I will do some quick rough diagrams of the space and get dimensions some time soon for this thread. But I figured I'd start it to get the brain-juices flowing. This is an old photo of the way the corner looked before we repained it white, but that's the same corner cabinet in the same placement. YES, that's the real color of the cabinet. I stained it to match the rest of the room. The TV that's in there now fills up the whole dang opening of the cabinet. I will get photos of the basement as it is now, as well as current speaker placement. (though I don't want to move the speakers if I can avoid it.)
I don't have a better picture. These were just taken to document the outrageous color scheme we had going on down there before we covered it up. If you want to see more, the pics are here.
The way my basement is set up, the most versatile place to put our television is in the corner. This puts it within viewing distance of almost the whole area.
My wife bought me a BOSE lifestyle system for Christmas last year and I set it up on a corner bias. It's not ideal, but for the amount of television we watch and the fact that we're in a townhouse, it's really nice. My wife has made the comment that the TV (a 36inch SONY LCD) is nice, but would be nicer if it were 50inch. The corner cabinet we have definitely won't handle a screen that big, so it's gotta go.
My thinking is to build a corner faux fireplace to set the TV on. Obviously, with a screen that big, I can't buy a corner fireplace because the wider you go, the taller the fireplace gets. At 60inches wide, we would probably break our necks looking up. So the plan is to build a wider and lower fireplace, put an electric fireplace insert in it and possible a hidden cubby in the top for the components (a Humax 40 hour TiVo Series 2 with DVD burner, and the BOSE Lifestyle unit.) I would like to include hidden shelving along the sides for DVD storage. Since the fireplace is going to be very wide, I assume I'll have a lot of free space to use. If need be, I'll bet I could put the components one one side (so they're not above the fireplace) and DVDs on the other.
For mounting the screen, I was considering either an arm mount on one of the corner's walls and having it "floating" above the fireplace, putting it on the supplied stand (boring), or even building up a faux mantle/wall above the fireplace from wall to wall and mounting it on that. It would certainly make hiding the cables a cinch.
A few questions:
I know I really need to sketch up some visuals to help with this. But figured I would put the call out because I've seen some incredible things in this forum that I would never have thought of. Thanks!
I don't have a better picture. These were just taken to document the outrageous color scheme we had going on down there before we covered it up. If you want to see more, the pics are here.
The way my basement is set up, the most versatile place to put our television is in the corner. This puts it within viewing distance of almost the whole area.
My wife bought me a BOSE lifestyle system for Christmas last year and I set it up on a corner bias. It's not ideal, but for the amount of television we watch and the fact that we're in a townhouse, it's really nice. My wife has made the comment that the TV (a 36inch SONY LCD) is nice, but would be nicer if it were 50inch. The corner cabinet we have definitely won't handle a screen that big, so it's gotta go.
My thinking is to build a corner faux fireplace to set the TV on. Obviously, with a screen that big, I can't buy a corner fireplace because the wider you go, the taller the fireplace gets. At 60inches wide, we would probably break our necks looking up. So the plan is to build a wider and lower fireplace, put an electric fireplace insert in it and possible a hidden cubby in the top for the components (a Humax 40 hour TiVo Series 2 with DVD burner, and the BOSE Lifestyle unit.) I would like to include hidden shelving along the sides for DVD storage. Since the fireplace is going to be very wide, I assume I'll have a lot of free space to use. If need be, I'll bet I could put the components one one side (so they're not above the fireplace) and DVDs on the other.
For mounting the screen, I was considering either an arm mount on one of the corner's walls and having it "floating" above the fireplace, putting it on the supplied stand (boring), or even building up a faux mantle/wall above the fireplace from wall to wall and mounting it on that. It would certainly make hiding the cables a cinch.
A few questions:
- How much heat would an electric fireplace pump out potentially? What considerations could I include in my design to alleviate this? I don't think we would use the heat feature very often. We have a separate little mobile heater and we're in a middle townhome.
- Has anyone built a faux fireplace and do you have any construction pics or plans?
I know I really need to sketch up some visuals to help with this. But figured I would put the call out because I've seen some incredible things in this forum that I would never have thought of. Thanks!
