A Guide to Planing TV Unit for Indian Homes

Do you recollect those days where TV unit and other living room furniture were enormously tall that it stretched right from flooring to ceiling. It had a huge box in center to mount your TV with shelves on side where entire family’s accomplishments were displayed.

Well gone are those days. TV units have now altered to elegant piece for furniture in living room. Minimalism is the new trend. But how much less can one go. Just floating shelves to place set-up-box seems too less. But the old fashioned cabinets is not what you want. Loop up for new age compact TV –cum-display units.
But before you buy one, consider the following points.

Designer – TV unit design mainly depends of the size that home owners want and space availability. Otherwise a TV unit design for Indian homes will have a shelf or cabinet to store Set-up box, home theater device.
We have designed variety of TV unit’s till now. Some home owners want a display unit while some don’t, so TV unit is designed as per all these specifications.

Designer PITCH – I would be there are 3 aspects to TV unit designing.

i. First is Position and Storage

• First is the TV position.
• Second, Above TV Storage or shelves for display or storage purpose.
• And lastly again Cabinets or shelves below the TV for same purpose.

Basis on these requirements, a TV unit is designed.

ii. Designer Hardware

Second point is, today on internet home owners can easily get to view latest creative hardware. Like you can have a handle or sliding shutter above the TV that can be pulled down when TV is not in use. Such design transforms the TV unit to another piece of furniture. But such hardware surely cost a bomb. Also such creative, expensive hardware’s can be installed by professionals only. You can get it installed by any local person. To close down this point I would say that such hardware firstly cost a lot and secondly are high on maintenance. SO we suggest keep it simple. More complicates design or hardware’s you go for it, it will cost you as it will be high on maintenance and will always require professional help if anything.

Opt for designs that would require very little (not high on maintenance), and design that you wouldn’t mind seeing for nest 10-15 years.

iii. Purpose of TV unit

While planning TV unit Design, know what design element is for looks and what is for storage purpose. Like for a client in Mumbai which is not a nuclear family but live in 1BHK apartment, we designed a simple TV unit with shelf to place set-up box. Next to the TV unit we designed a storage cabinet to place clothing. It may sound absurd, clothing storage and in living room. But this is the case with most home owners living in smaller apartments living in metro cities like Mumbai. People or in such case you may even bound to plan to store TV related items i.e. cassettes, cd’s etc. in TV unit. But for smaller homes where storing basic necessities is only a big issue.

What I mean to say is that the Tv unit has 2 main aspect the looks and storage part. For looks home owners can have TV paneling done behind the TV area, or laser cut sheet installed with backlit light or laser cut Corian sheet, etc. You have varied ideas to highlight your TV unit adding style to it.

Coming to storage, home owners can have storage cabinets as per their requirement on either sides or both side of the TV unit. Here TV units could be designed as on piece of furniture close to wall. Storage will also majorly depend on space availability too.

Lastly, there are ample of design you can choose from online today. Avoid being attracted to too creative ideas since it increase you budget and maintenance cost as discussed above. Keep it simple. Just ask yourself for are you wanting to see that particular Tv unit design for next 10-15 years. If yes, thumbs up to that design.

[updated on 5-Mar-2023 by Nitin, founder of Contractorbhai.com]

The TV unit is an eye magnet inside your living room. A TV unit is furniture which becomes the most important part of living room design. Depending upon your design theme, tv unit can be very minimalistic. Or it could be big and lavish with a lot of storage inside.

Here are few random suggestions made by our interior designers

Essential things inside TV Unit

TV, set top box, switchboard, place to keep remote controls. These are essential functionalities for a TV unit. After this we can add more design & features to take care of other items.

Storage & Decor

Once essential items are placed inside a TV unit, depending upon space & design theme, we can add more things to it. Storage element can be added if you require it. Decor is added by creating open or closed (glass) space to keep artifacts.

Panel in Tiles

Recent trend is to have a background panel behind TV. This can be created using different materials. You basically want to highlight area behind Tv unit. An easiest & cost effective way is to use designer tiles. Using this you can create different types of look required – wooden or italian marble or modern or classic. It is easy to clean and maintain.

Panel in Corian (solid surface) or acrylic

You can use a combination of wood work & corian to create a beautiful panel background. You can also use acrylic sheet cutouts to create designs. Light combination with this creates a beautiful design look.

Wall mounted

If you space/gap between floor & Tv Unit, it allows you to easily clean the floor surface below TV Unit.

Length of room

Do not forget the most important criteria. Watching Tv in such a manner that it keeps your eyes protected. Height of the TV & distance is important for this. If distance is less, create a minimal TV unit to keep the best distance.

Bedroom TV

In our design philosophy, tv unit inside the bedroom should be minimal. To be honest there should be less usage of tv inside the bedroom. In front of eyes you should less objects, this way your goal of relaxing inside bedroom is achieved more easily.

Contradicting objects

Buddha statue besides Tv or temple next to TV unit. If space allows you to make better decisions, avoid such opposite / contradicting objects next to tv.

Study table next to TV, only if there is a lack of space.

Cleaning & maintenance

More decorated & elaborate Tv unit you have, more cleaning work is required. If there are a lot of switches & light decorative light points, more maintenance will be involved over years.

Panel purpose

Whole concept of the panel came into practice was to hide all wires running behind tv. However if you want minimal a Tv unit, wires can be concealed & run through the wall.

Woofer on floor

Woofer creates vibration. It has to be kept on the floor.