Like many other things, a lot depends on your budget. Are the wires coming out of the wall near the baseboard or higher up? If the former, perhaps the previous owner had a wall mounted TV. If the latter (and from the picture) it looks like this is more likely, they are probably wires for the speakers. I would guess that the previous owner had a multi-room audio system. Your first decision is whether you care about having music from a central location in each room that has the existing speakers. If you don't, then just forget about them and put the wires back in the wall and patch it up. If you do want music in different rooms, you may still want to forget about the wires because there are better ways to do it these days using a Sonos system or Apple AirPlay. If you want to re-use the speakers, you're looking at investing in a whole house audio distribution system from Niles, Control4, etc. Concerning the TV, with an available width of 38", you should be able to get a 40" screen in there like this one: http://www.samsung.com/us/video/tvs/UN40ES6580FXZA-specs Whether this is big enough will depend on your viewing distance. If you get a Smart TV, it will stream programming from the Internet via Netflix or other subscription services. If you care about this, it might be the right choice. If not, I'd pass on it. Some Smart TVs required a wired connection. You might prefer one that is wireless since it is one less wire to run (assuming you have wireless Internet at home and that you get a good signal where your TV is). How easy a Smart TV is to use is a question that only you can answer and you should take a look at their interfaces at a store like Best Buy or better yet Magnolia (part of Best Buy and higher end but you'd be going there because of their better knowledge). For a DVD player (might as well go Blu-ray as I'm not even sure that you can get DVD players anymore), unless you have very specific needs they all work about the same. Some have smart features (duplicating what is in the TV if it is a Smart TV). If you care about those, the same thing that I said about Smart TVs applies to BD/DVD players about the ease of use and networking. You may want to stick with the same brand of TV and DVD player since some of them have nice interoperability features (Panasonics have something called Vieralink which essentially means that you can control the DVD player with the TV's remote). The sound on most TVs is awful. Not a surprise: how can you get good sound out of something so flat? For this reason, you may want to consider a soundbar. Some of these will also enable you to play back music from your phone through them. If you already have an iPhone and your music is in iTunes, you might want to look at devices that integrate into that environment. If you want to listen to music (or watch videos from your iPhone) through your TV, consider an Apple TV. This is a small inexpensive device that plugs into your TV and it will play your iTunes library through your TV. You can also send it videos from your iPhone. If you want music in other rooms, you can look at AirPlay compatible speakers. There are many kinds available at various price points and of various quality - see here http://reviews.cnet.com/best-airplay-speakers/ But they all do the same thing: you connect your iPhone to them wirelessly and your music will come out of the speakers. So my shopping list for you would be: * 40" TV * BD/DVD player * Soundbar with wireless sub * Apple TV * Logitech Harmony remote to make it all work from one remote This post was edited by GromitInWA on Tue, Feb 5, 13 at 0:53

Yamaha's MusicCast system is a wireless system that allows you to rip your CD's onto a hard drive and then hear them in any room in your house. Here is a link that might be useful: click here

I'm with you on singing the praises of seizing the opportunity to wire sound into the place. We hadn't initially planned sound into our kitchen renovation, but when the ceiling was open I thought, "Gee.... looks like it'd be so easy... maybe it'd be nice if...." next thing I knew I'd bought 1- a couple pairs of these: Cambridge SoundWorks - Ambiance 80 In-Ceiling Speakers (Pair) (only $80/pair and great sound!). 2 - Two of these: Pyle - Mini 2x75W Stereo Power Amplifier - PCA3 and added one of these ($55 each on Amazon) 3 - One of these: Airport Express ($99) My DH wired it in so we didn't have to pay for the contractor to add it on to his bill. So, for a mere $360 (cheaper than a single faucet), we now have awesome sound surrounding us in either the kitchen, living room, or both (would love to add outside, too!). It is heavenly, and with the Airport express it's all controllable from any of our laptops. Best thing is that we can use either our I-Tunes library, or we can listen to anything on the internet (I think we added a $20 program that allows the internet stations to "see" the in-ceiling speakers, too) through the speakers -- which led me to discover the joy of making custom stations on Pandora. It's a beautiful thing. As if anyone needs encouragement to spend just a little more on a renovation, but believe me you won't be sorry....

Dreambuilder. Being inside and not in direct sunlight or the elements of Mother Nature, you have a lot of options. It almost the same as if you were selecting a tv for you living room or any other room in the house. It depends how far away you will be sitting from the tv during normal viewing. A good general rule of thumb is to get a tv one third the size of your seating distance. With today's hi def displays, a 2:1 ratio is even possible. If the Tv is too big or you're sitting too close, you will be able to see pixels in the picture being displayed...not a good thing. Example, if the tv will be 10' from the hot tub, then a 40" tv would be the minimum size and a 60" TV would be the biggest size. If the hot tub is 5' from the tv, then a 20"-30" TV would be recommended. Regarding the type of TV, any technology will be fine since you're indoors. Plasma is not as bright as LCD but generally has a better picture and is far better than LCD when viewing from an angle. Plasma's also tend to be more expensive than LCD. LCD tv's are brighter, so if your hot tub room is bright, this may be the better choice. The downside of LCD is the picture will become dimmer if your sitting at an angle to the TV. LCD's are the least expensive technology these days unless you get into cutting edge local dimming edge lit LCD's which carry a premium price tag. Hope this helps.