Do you have a sketch of the floor plan that you can post? I'm having a hard time visualizing how the pentagonal "main" room is divided up into areas for kitchen, dining, and TV/fireplace/living zones. A sketch might help us see what you're trying to do and would definitely make it easier to make suggestions because we could copy and paste your sketch into our Paint programs and draw on top of it.

This should go in the electronics forum, but I'll answer anyway. It sounds like you are still getting an analog signal from the cable company. As long as you make sure to get a TV with a built-in tuner, you should be all set. No box required, you're lucky. The thing is though, it sounds like you aren't getting an HD signal. The standard definition picture that looked fine on your older TV may not look as good on your flatscreen, since it was designed for a much higher resolution. But frankly, I'm amazed your current setup even works still. In my area, they ENCRYPTED the basic cable signals, so even if you had a newer flatscreen TV with digital tuner, you had to get a converter box for every TV in your house. And to top it off, these cheapo "converter boxes" weren't even compatible with HD, so if you wanted to get your HD signal back like you had before the box, you had to upgrade to a higher tier of cable. What a racket. practigal: Netflix is great, I love it, but you can't just order movies from it. There is a subscription fee. Though there are other services like iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Instant Video, and Vudu where you can just pay per movie or TV show. I actually tried to cancel my basic cable a few years ago for the same reason (internet streaming) and they threatened to jack up the cost of my internet higher than the basic cable fee! So I just kept it.

erinsean - I appreciate the sentiment but my wife and I both like the tiebacks. Besides, years of experience has taught me that when dealing with that much height in a window, tiebacks are the easiest, quickest, cleanest, and most reliable way to open and close the curtain (unless the windows are wider). Sometimes the old ways are better. Besides, 10 years from now or less, everyone will be saying how you should be using tiebacks on your curtains. Besides now I can recreate the bedroom scene from Sound of Music :)

@saratogaswizzlestick - Thanks for your ideas! How would the latch and panel open? (Would it swing outward like a cabinet door or something else?) I'm having trouble visualizing what you mean. :) P.S. For reference for everyone viewing this thread, the carved tv area currently has a rolling double "doors" that can be pulled together to shut or pulled apart to retract into the space.