Guest Blogger: Keeping your Kids and TV Safe Around Each Other

Guest Blog #174, Entry #653, September 12, 2011

For many households, the television is considered part of the family! Well, maybe not exactly, but for as much as it is used and homeowners design around it, the television is an important asset to many homes. The challenge for many parents is the safety that surround televisions, as well as keeping the television from becoming broken from kids.

My Guest Blogger gives tips for keeping your kids and television safe around each other, for a happy family!

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Protect your kids, tv and equipment from each other!

Image courtesy of The Furniture

Protecting your assets – from tearaway toddlers

As most parents will realize children and electricity don’t mix.  To be more specific, children and electrical equipment don’t mix.  I’m not talking about sub-stations – although they should certainly be avoided – but things like cookers, TVs, DVD players, hair dryers and, of course, plug sockets.  The smaller the child the greater the risk, and in many domestic settings you can throw into the mix a couple of ‘domesticated’ animals.  Neither domestic animals nor children should be left to play with electrical stuff on their own – despite the apparent attraction that TVs hold for them.  Apart from the obvious safety implications, there is also the simple fact that some items, like large expensive flat screen TVs, are particularly vulnerable to prying hands or paws.  TVs don’t respond well to being pushed over – accidentally or otherwise.

Irritated designer syndrome

Thankfully modern TVs are designed to be wall mounted – a blessing to those with small children.  Safely hung out of the way, you may not have much control over what they watch, but you can at least be sure they aren’t going to be playing “hide, seek and knock over” with an expensive modern flat screen.  However, wall mounted or not, TVs can be the source of one other type of irritation – the design nightmare.  Modern TVs are sleek and attractive items but ultimately they are functional objects; flat screen or not they can take up a lot of space.  Often they take up a lot of space that you have spent a significant amount of money decorating and designing.  There’s no getting away from it, TVs stand out.  So having got them safely out of the way of kids and animals – how do you then design them in to your perfect scheme?

Mounting your tv on the wall can be safer

Image courtesy of House to Home

Thinking about the box

There is one simple trick and that is to design around the TV.  This may sound a bit extreme – but it’s not as mad as it sounds!  TVs, when it use, get a lot of attention – they have long since replaced other features like fireplaces.  Designing around the TV – or at least with it strongly in mind – can help to minimize the visual impact it has.  TVs tend to be dark – the screen at least will be an expanse of black when it’s off. Adding dark colors to your color scheme can help to integrate it – and make it less obtrusive.  Wood paneling around the TV can help to create a transition from the black screen to the lighter scheme of the rest of the room.

Glass acts

Simple, or not so simple, TV frames can also help; thanks to the flat screen revolution a TV frame can be designed to fit the system perfectly.  Whether it is wood, metal or even gold leafed and ornate, a frame can help to set off the TV to a better effect.  Unlike some options for creating furniture to accommodate your entertainment systems, this doesn’t have to be an expensive one.  Even handmade frames built using traditional joinery skills can be affordable.  Frames can be simple wood or painted with whatever color you choose.  Most manufacturers will produce frames to fit standard TV models – although if you are commissioning one it’s up to you when it comes to size, style and dimensions.  Mirror TV frames offer the perfect solution to create an unobtrusive addition to your home.  Using glass that can transform into a mirror when the TV is not in use, it creates a beautiful and functional item in its own right, and doesn’t affect the performance of your TV when it’s on!  Disguising the TV and ensuring it is safely out of reach of inquisitive small hands and paws can help to create a safer living space and a far more attractive one!

Decorate around your television

Image courtesy of House Beautiful

A TV mirror frame not only hides your TV – a perennial problem for interior designers – but is in itself a beautiful addition to a room.  Frames made by hand, using traditional skills, are available from www.frameyourtv.co.uk to add the perfect finish touch to any room.

For more interior design ideas on Stagetecture, click here.