[silvyn]

My wife and I are completing a basement remodel, which means we need to start making the IKEA trips (we did our whole kitchen remodel with IKEA 2 years ago and love it).

We're at a loss of how to set up the entertainment center with the wall we have. The main problem is a unfortunately placed window and a larger than normal TV (I had to get it!).

What we'd like is something more modern (we like the BESTA the besta...). Stiby is nice, but the setup is 122" (10" too big...)

The TV dimensions are 52W x 4.1D x 31.7H inches & 66.4 pounds.

This is what the wall looks like:

Thanks for any suggestions!

[Dave of the Coonties]

I don't see the wall....

[miamicanes]

Big tip: if your TV is (or likely to be) 54" or larger, make sure your media center design is flexible enough to let you put the TV on a platform that's 20" or lower. My 61" DLP is sitting on a pair of BESTA benches (~14" high), and it's actually about an inch or two higher than I'd really like it to be. Anything taller would have been absolutely intolerable.

Why? The most comfortable angle is one where the center third of the TV is slightly BELOW your "straight ahead" gaze. As the screen gets wider, it gets taller as well. The taller the screen, the lower you'll want it to sit unless you happen to have stadium seating in your home theater room. The closer you sit to the screen, the more critical this point becomes.

For a long-ish term strategy, I'd recommend leaving yourself a "window" that's 96" wide and ~72" high, where you can if necessary replace everything inside the "window", while leaving the surrounding cabinetry intact. For example, you might begin with a 48" wide x 25" tall BESTA cabinet on legs (a.k.a. "JAGRA") to hold a 42-47" LCD TV now, and flank it with a pair of 25" wide BESTA cabinets between 25 and 75" tall. A future 56" TV might merit replacing the 48" x 25" middle unit with a single 48" x 10" bench on legs. Go to 60" or above, and replace the 3-5" legs with the stock disc feet. If the new TV is really heavy (ie, DLP RPTV), you might have to lose the 25" BESTA cabinets flanking it, get a second 48x10 low bench identical to the first, and put the TV in the middle so half lies above each bench.