Decorating a small apartment on an even smaller budget can be a tricky task. The goal is to create a living area that is comfortable, and enjoyable, while at the same time maximizing your space, and minimizing the amount of cash spent on the whole design project.

I needed to mount a TV above the fireplace because it was really the only place in the room it could be viewed by everyone and not in the way. The mantel of our fireplace is rather high (almost 6 feet) which would put the center of the TV well above a comfortable viewing angle. I spent months searching for a TV mount that could lower the TV to a decent height. I quickly discovered that anything motorized would cost several times what I paid for the TV. Beyond that, there were 2 options: Omnimount or Down and Out by Dynamic Mounting (http://www.dynamicmounting.com/index.php). The Omnimount is cheaper ($200-$300 vs. $400-$500) but an inferior product for my purposes. The Down and Out mount is much thinner (protrudes ~4 inches from the wall) and can lower the TV much farther (~30 inches!). I should also say that I have engineering degrees and tend to do all my own work. I thought about making my own mount but was a bit surprised at both the cost and level of difficulty. The Down and Out was fairly simple to mount on the wall and works VERY well.

Emmachas, Always save things to two places and for important things three or more. Hard drive. Disc. Online hosting service. Email. And some websites will allow you to 'save' things in your profile so you can easily reference things without having to mine your hard drive. Just look in the upper right hand corner of your post and click on the appropriate action; clip this post, email this post.

We have a lift cabinet for our family room tv. I love it, as I dislike seeing a tv when it's not on. My DH is now talking about replacing it with something more shallow. The back is open on ours and we get a lot of dust in through the back. Ours does hold our DVD's on the upper shelves, but only the lower shelf is deep enough to hold the components. Because of that, we need the tower next to it to hold the rest of them. Another negative with lift cabs is that you can't put anything on the top surface of it, as it lifts up with the tv. But, I do love the look of the nice uncluttered cabinet with my wonderful Native American art framed above it instead of a big, black tv. < Edited to add: Just saw the video on a tv lift cab that Lars posted. I like that there is room on top to put a lamp, piece of art, etc. There doesn't look to be any DVD storage in it, but there is room for components. Because they're off to the side, with side access, can you still use your remote(s) to easily operate everything from your seats? With the component door closed? >