If you live in a new build property or the walls in your home cannot take a lot of weight that you may not be able to put your TV on the wall. Instead you may need to put it on a stand. TV stands for LCD TVs are a lot shallower than the stands available for the older more traditional CRT TV. They average at being about 500mm (20”), the reason for this is that they still have to accommodate set top boxes which haven’t changed in size.

Some LCD TV stands come as part of a package with your new TV, but many don’t. This is a good thing though; you can make sure that you get the TV stand that suits you. There is a large range of cheap LCD TV stands available most of which offer good value for money when compared to there more expensive equivalents.

Before buying an LCD stand you should know the answers to these questions:

1. How heavy is my TV?
2. What are the dimensions of my TV?
3. What is the space available for my TV and stand?
4. How many set top boxes do I have (Sky / VCR / DVD etc)
5. What else do I want to store on my LCD stand – for example do you have a surround sound speaker setup that requires the speaker to go above or below the TV. Do you wish to store DVD’s along side your TV?

LCD stands come in a number of formats from the more traditional looking wooden cabinet with doors on the front to ultra high tech looking glass versions. Make sure that whatever sort you get there is some way of keeping the cable tidy. Here’s an overview of each type:

If you only have a small room a transparent glass stand can be an ideal solution to your problem. A glass stand will make your room look bigger because you can see through it and in many cases even with set top boxes in place you will still be able to see the corner of your room. You can also get black LCD TV stands that’s can look great in the right environment.

There are a lot of wooden LCD TV stands about, the cheaper variery is usually made form laminated chipboard (sometimes called particle board) but the more expensive versions will be made from real wood such as Oak or Walnut. Wood TV Stands probably come in the most varieties compared to all the other type. As I mentioned previously there are more traditional version with doors, but there are also more contemporary versions that have drawers in the bottom of them that give a lot more useful storage space.
 

Your room layout may dictate that your TV needs to go in a corner, stand manufacturers were slow to catch on about this requirement for LCD’s but now seem to be up to speed and there is a variety now on offer. Where as most tv stands are square edged a corneer TV stand will have opposite edges cut off at 45o so that it fit’s neatly in to a corner. As a generalization most of these will just have either doors on the front of them or just shelves. Not many will come with drawers.

These are the type of stands that look very minimalist. When they have all of the kit on on them (TV / set top boxes etc) it looks as though the whole set up is hovering. They have a beam at the back and all of the shelves are supported from it. When viewed from the front you can see no support for the shelves. More often than not this type of stand has glass shelves which complement the hi-tech feel of them nicely.

Not every one wants to have their TV on show, and in some rooms – such as a bedroom -  a TV would look better hidden away. There are some very nice solutions available for this. Some of the living room cabinets are very wide and have large sliding doors on them. When shut they just look like a piece of nice furniture. Another advantage of having your TV out of view is that it doesn’t collect as much dust.

This is an expensive option but there are some great automated LCD Plasma TV stands out there. The TV lives in side a low cabinet that looks just like a normal side board, but with a click of the button the TV slowly emerges from the cabinet. These are a great solution for the bedroom if your budget allows!

Hopefully this article gives you enough ideas to get started with your hunt for TV stands. You get a far greater choice by shopping online than you ever would by going in to your local store, and many offer a good returns policy so you can return it if it’s not to your taste.