What kind of help are you looking for? It looks like you have things pretty well laid out. That plate is beautiful! And I love the hidden components.

My only question is this: what will you be storing in the drawers? In my family room, I'd have board games and jigsaw puzzles, DVDs, photo albums. Much as I love kitchen drawers, board games go better in a cabinet.

It looks like the TV will be unviewable with that furniture arrangement.

Love the metal mesh stuff. I think this will look good.

And yes, I agree about the drawers--lose them. No need. I hate to say it, but this is the place for pullouts.

Ontariomom,

Here are our built-ins, posted in a different thread:

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3005856/white-cabinets-or

Personally, we *love* our great room drawers - wonderful for storing DVDs (under the TV), games, and art supplies for DDs. We had cabinets only in our previous great room, and much prefer drawers!

In planning our built-ins, we also considered a drop-down for components, but elected to place our (tiny new) DVD player on a small shelf of top of the TV instead. (Other components are in a (remote) electrical closet.) This allowed us to have less wasted space, and also to place the TV at a better viewing height.

I forgot about DVDs and CDs! Yes, they'd be good in drawers...or pullouts.

will the tv be mounted on a pullout swivel? We are big tv watchers in my house, and that couch placement would not be idea for us. but if TV is only an occasional thing, you are fine. Love the plate display!

Thank you everyone for your comments! Nice to come home from work and see your responses. We really lack confidence designing this on our own, so appreciate you taking a look. The cabinet company is RTA so we are on our own with design and problem solving. In particular, I wondered if the dimensions of the built-ins would work (height of TV, depth of cabinets, etc). The depths of our cabinets on our plan are only 8 inches for the portion above the drawers and 16 inches for the drawers (we lose some depth for the door/drawer front depth). To store plates, speakers, TV and DVDs we don't need much depth. We could bump the depth to 10 inch for the top portion to allow some book storage behind doors, and then put a false back for the plate portion where too much depth is not a great thing. What do you think? I also wondered if the overal look was pleasing.

A few answers:

This will not be our main TV viewing area. The kids' have a man cave downstairs where a larger TV and Xbox will live. If larger groups were watching TV, I assume they would use the basement TV. I see that a few spots in our furniture set-up work well for TV viewing, and several do not. I picture both chairs working well, and one spot on the couch (person laying lenthwise on couch under window. The TV will be on a swivel with an arm, so hopefully that will allow decent viewing for those three spots.

As for what we are storing in the drawers, we had thought about DVDs there, although they would also go well in the cabinet on the opposite side of the TV as that is a shallow cabinet. It may even make most sense to store all the DVDs near the basement TV. We have a closet for board games, and other storage for toys so we are not planning any toys there. We could also store books in the cabinet that is on the opposite side of the fireplace from the TV cabinet. I will think more on what we want to store in this unit.

Please help me to understand why pull-outs inside a cupboard might be worth considering? DH was favouring all cabinets and no drawers, but from my time on GW I thought drawers were more sensible and easier to use. Given we have two closets nearby that have plenty of deep shelves, I figured drawers would be better.

@Mommytoc -- your built-ins are beautiful! I hope mine turn out as lovely. Our TV components wonlt fit in the same cabinet as the TV as the TV cabinet is only 8 inch not including the door. The components we currently own are deeper than that.

Carol

Nah, don't need pullouts--I didn't realize they weren't very deep. If DVDs were in them, it still might be good, but sounds like you already have a spot for those.

As far as appearances go, yes, I think it's pleasing. I might try it out with the flip-down door and drawers each fronted with two smaller doors (tacked together to operate as one). (And you were worried about it looking too busy!)

Thanks Fori. The drawer part is 16 inch deep, but not as deep as a typical lower kitchen cupboard (24 inches). I like your idea of breaking the look of the flip down cubbie and the drawers to look like 6 drawers per side instead of three per side. Those drawers are quite wide (45 inches) so visually might look better if they looked narrower. We will try that.

Carol

How does this area connect to the rest of the floor plan? Here is the thing... say you have a large crowd over for the "big game" (substitute "Outlander premier", "Oscar Party", "Fight" to your desire). If everyone is chatting and milling about in the common greatroom area, kids are holed up in the xBox room, not to be bothered with whatever the grown-ups are doing (except for stealing food I'm sure), is this TV location going to work? What if the "guys" are downstairs watching "the race" and the ladies are upstairs with HGTV on? I mean, there are a million scenarios to run though.

I'd at minimum move it to the other side of the fireplace (glare from windows) and consider a higher end swivel mount (check monoprice.com -> excellent swivel mounts for inexpensive prices).

With that depth, I think either cabinets or drawers would (functionally) be fine - re: drawers, I do think two stacks (vs. one) would look nice.

(And your plate display will be lovely as well!)

Depending on how your house is oriented, glare may actually be more of a problem with the TV on the right vs. left side.

Mama Rachel

You make a lot of good points. We have never used TV shows, or big games as a jumping off point for entertaining (kids have, but not us). For those wanting two main TV areas built for entertaining (basement and great room) our plan would not work. I am very pleased to get your suggestion on where to get a good arm swivel for the TV to improve upon the position for viewing.

I have posted below a floor plan of the open concept space. As per glare, there are lots of windows in this area, so we will need to buy the best glare free TV we can find. The large window behind the couch is south facing. There are windows located directly across from the proposed TV location (as well as across from the cab on other side of fireplace), but they are over 36 feet away in the dining room (west facing windows). There are also west facing windows in the kitchen that might make the left hand side even more prone to glare. Also if we keep it in its proposed location, we of DS can see it when dishes are washed (yeah).

MommyToc,

Thanks again for your comments and for thinking through the drawer and shelf depth. I think we are going to increase the depth of the upper part of this built in to 11 inches so we can accommodate books behind the closed doors. We can put a false back on the plate display part as that part does not need 11 inches of depth. Glad you think the plate display will look good too. We are thinking of putting a grove in the shelves for the plates, and then leaning the plates against the back of the shelf. In addition to those blue plates I posted, we also have some brown Hummel plates (we own less of those than blue) but we will display both for some visual variety and put Hummel figurines in between the plates.

We are also planning on lighting the plates shelves. There will also be can lights cross lighting the fireplace and possibly uplights near the base of the stone surround.

Carol

Seeing the entire layout, I think you are okay with the TV by the window. Get a swivel mount. When you watch it pull it out and angle it away from the window (aim toward the pennisula sink) and you should be fine. Optimal height for the TV is the same as the top of your mantle, just FYI. TVs should not be up too high. You want to be looking into the center of the TV while seated without having to tilt your neck back to make it comfortable.

Thanks Mama Rachel. The bottom of the TV as shown is 27 from floor. DH thinks this is high enough. Is he correct?

Carol

Sorry I didn't read through, but did you mention how the remote will access the components inside the cabinets?

I have a similar set up and I thought I would have to use glass doors or something so the remotes could work.

But DH set up some IR or IF remote sensors and so everything is connected to this IR thing, and it's the only thing that installed onto the closed door and the remotes work perfectly w/ that sensor.

I'll ask him for the exact item(s) and update.

I love my set up. Now you do see all those components inside the cabinets but still work w/ the remotes.

Amanda

That sounds about right for TV height.

I love my swivel mount in the master bedroom. Of course, we haven't used the TV in a year but when we did, it was awesome.

@ Thank you Mama Rachel for your confirmations and help!

@Amanda: Thanks for your comments! We are going to use metal perforated grates over the component drop downs and where speakers will be. We hope these will allow remotes to work through them, but uncertain if they will. I would love to hear more about the IR sensors that work through glass. If they work through glass, they certainly will work through the perforated metal grates.

Carol