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Technology Meets Style

by Melanie Coddington

Home technology devices are like live-in girlfriends – nice to have around, even if they don’t always look pretty. Technology’s convenience can be overshadowed by its difficulty in blending into your design scheme, but we have some tips to help you achieve the perfect balance of technology and style.

Let’s tackle the three big-ticket tech items – televisions, music, and computers – that can make or break your decorating scheme.

Televisions A recent study has proven that Shane’s hair looks better on a flat screen. If that’s not reason enough to invest, LCD and Plasma flat screens are not only better design-wise than their bulky, less-attractive predecessors, but they are also easier to display.

It’s perfectly acceptable to mount these types of televisions on the wall or stand the screens on a well-finished media cabinet. Remember to keep the TV in proper scale with the room to ensure a more harmonious feel within the space. In other words, size matters.|

If your TV is less than state of the art, you can always camouflage its bulk by placing it inside a piece of furniture or media cabinet. Make sure that the doors of the cabinet either bifold or hinge all the way back so you have a clear view.

In the woman’s bedroom pictured here, I designed a custom cabinet to hide the cable box, TiVo and DVD components. Depending on the age and price of your components, you may need to keep the doors of your media cabinet open in order for the remotes to work. This flat panel is on a swing arm, so the screen can be seen from the bed and the sitting area pictured.

An unsolicited opinion on entertainment centers: They make me want to throw up. They are gigantic and overwhelming and often wrapped in a heinous wood-like veneer. Technology loves tiny. Televisions and speakers keep getting smaller, so vow to disown cumbersome cabinets. Also, think twice about building cabinetry into your wall, unless you are so smitten with the design that you will love it even after you have started storing your socks in it.

Music
Woofers are out, tweeters are in. Following iPod form, speakers should be sleek and powerful. I’d like to encourage you to consider beauty at least as equally as function when shopping for stereo components. If you have a larger space, whole-house solutions can send music into every room with unobtrusive ceiling and wall-mount speakers, both indoors and out. The unsightly equipment used to power these uniform systems should be housed out of sight in a closet.

Computers
A hideous computer can turn a beautiful room into a RadioShack® sidewalk sale. I realize that I might take it a little too far in my office, as I’m typing on an 11” x 7” laptop screen that I use every day. But consider trading in that bulky monitor for a flat panel screen. The goal is to gain a cleaner, more streamlined look, not to showcase your mouse pad photo montage of your cat. And don’t forget the cord cover to control that beehive of tangled cords.

Whatever your decorating style – or technology style – there is a way to mesh the two, with just a bit of thought and planning. Of course, if you’re looking to impress your new woman, who just happens to be part of the Geek Squad, then perhaps that certain Radio-Shack-sidewalk-sale je ne sais quoi is just what you need to get the girl.