Weird Floor Plan? Use Swivel Systems to Access TV from anywhere.

Does the room in which you want to have a TV have design quirks that cause layout problems when you’re trying to figure out where to put the TV? Fortunately, you have options. You may be able to incorporate any one of a number of different TV swivel systems.

Here’s an example. Years ago, I had a friend whose living room almost didn’t have walls, making it hard to decide where to put the TV. One end of the room was a large picture window which looked out into the front yard, with a front door next to it. One side of the room was a fireplace, with bookshelves to the left and right. The other side was a staircase leading to the second floor.

The other end was a small partition which separated the ‘living room’ from the small dining room/kitchen area, with an open doorway on either side. The house itself was pretty small, so there weren’t any other options for a TV space. In spite of a nearly comedic series of attempts, this living room arrangement never seemed to really work; it always felt sort of haphazard.

If the technology had been available at the time, this would have been an ideal place to install a TV lift. We could have placed the TV wherever we liked in the room, and then it could have discretely just tucked away into the floor or the ceiling when not in use, out of sight and out of mind. Several different types of these TV lifts swivel, allowing any seat in the room to become a prime viewing space. Another handy option would have been to mount the TV to the odd dining room partition, using a gliding wall mount. This would have made good use of an otherwise perfectly useless pseudo-wall space.

I can look back now and see how practical this solution would have been. The reality is that it just wasn’t possible at the time. At the risk of dating myself, I will acknowledge that the centerpiece of this friend’s home entertainment system was a brand new, six-hundred dollar Betamax VCR. And it even had a remote control! (Not a wireless remote, mind you, but it was still a remote and was therefore incredibly cool.)

Yes, times have changed, and that’s a good thing.