*RE-WRITTEN* A space for everything but the kitchen sink ! (TV & Video Cabinets)

Member Name: chele2002

Product:	TV & Video Cabinets
Date:	09/05/01 (524 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent value, Strong and sturdy, Room to fit a tv/video/sky or cable box/hi-fi and speakers, cd's and video tapes

Disadvantages: Only available in beech effect

After getting a few problems with our sky box turning off for no reason, it was suggested by one of Sky's technical advisors that it may have been caused by the box over heating due it being positioned on the top of our video recorder. As a temporary measure, we ended out putting our video recorder and Sky box, on the basic TV/Video stand that we had, so that they were no where near each other, with out TV positioned on our table that formed part of a highchair. All seemed to be fine for a while, until we noticed that the table had become somewhat wobbly, so there was a strong possibility of it collapsing at any moment, to the cost of a fairly new TV.

It was simply no good; we really did need to buy something a lot stronger and much more suitable that would accommodate for our increasing electrical gadgets, before the whole lot came crashing down before our very own eyes.

We search every where that we could think of, MFI, Index, Courts, Furniture Land you name it we looked but nothing really suitable or to suit our budget come to think of it. We even wandered around many of the second hand shops that sell these types of units but sadly the prices were not much less than buying it new or the dark wood effects were not to our taste or current décor.

Finally our search ended, when I was a little bored one day and decided to browse through an Argos catalogue and came across a nice looking unit, for a reasonable price and what's more just perfect to fit in with all our other furniture. It had every thing going for it, just what we needed and priced reasonably at just £49.99 and our first ever purchase thanks to our earned Dooyoo miles.


The unit
--------

The unit is very nice looking indeed, perhaps a little plain for some peoples taste, or even a little boxy looking but still a complimentary piece of furniture that adds a focal point to any room, and adds a new definition to the word organised, yes even for
me who is not the most organised of people at the best of times. The unit comes in a beech effect, which seems to be the in thing when it comes to décor at the moment, fits in lovely with our computer stand and laminate floor of the same beech effect, but at the same time, may not be to the taste of others.

When they designed this, they really did have most people in mind. Let's just say, not only does it host our TV, video and Sky box, but there is even room for our stereo and speakers too. Just perfect, when you want to save space, reduce clutter and put's a bit of organisation back into the room.



Unit description
-----------------

The unit stands that little bit more than most units of this type, and is also that little bit wider, making it suitable for the ever increasing popularity of wide-screen televisions.



You have one long surface at the top, which is intended for your television set, our TV is a 28" widescreen, but we have also had a 21" TV set on there too, and both look equally fine, with not too much spare space around the set or too little, it look ok either way.

Working from the front centre, there are 2 shelves, which are both fully adjustable, this provides sufficient room for an average sized stereo system, still leaving plenty of room to prevent over-heating, and also room for a video player/sky box, video/DVD, sky box/DVD, so any combination of 2, along with the stereo. Nice!! Means if you get easily bored with the arrangement of your entertainment bits and pieces, then the shelves can always be re-arranged to suit the mood.

Either side of the centre shelving, you will find yet even more room to allow for quite a number of videos or records (do they still exist?), that has 1 additional shelves that goes so far back and is adjustable, and going buy the design, it looks like it is intended for storing CD's, as there is a bit of wood that prevents any
thing from falling behind (Personally I tend not to bother storing CD's in full view of a 1 and 2 year old, way too much temptation).

Then finally we come to the end shelves, situated either end of the unit, these are fixed, raised slightly off the ground, with support underneath, to play host to the stereo speakers, if you wish. With the speakers being so low down, we thought that the sound would be compromised but no, still sounds just as good as they used to.



Unit dimensions
------------------

The overall size of the unit is as follows:

153cm width
68.4cm height
50cm depth


Trust me girls and guys, you go get your tape measure and you will see for yourselves that from the dimensions alone, that it is a good size, add that to the sections, and the fully adjustable shelves, then you have, all the space and more for all your unsightly electrical clutter (treasure).



Packaging and instructions
------------------------------

The unit comes, flat packed in two separate boxes and is bloody heavy, and it's at this point that I would suggest that you transport this in a car or taxi as it would be a bit of a struggle on a bus, plus it fits just nicely on the back seat of the car or boot.

When we opened ours, we found it to be packed very tightly with no damage what so ever and is padded out by polystyrene to prevent damage and extra pieces of wood to prevent the box becoming squashed.

You are given a check list included on the step-by-step instructions and a free phone number and details of what to do if you find a piece or two missing even down to one screw. We actually found one screw was missing but after giving our reference number for the product and the part missing we were informed that it would be sent out in the post to us. Nothing major as it doesn't effect how rigid the overall of the unit.

The instructions wer
e not the easiest to follow as you had to refer to some of the advanced step to find out what screws to use to fix the parts together.

We started to put ours together when we got back from Chris's (my husband) mums house which was quite late and by the time we got the children and baby settled it was well past 1 am before we started.

The whole lot took us just over 3 hours and boy were we knackered. It doesn't usually take this long for us to assemble something but the instructions could have been a bit clearer and we could have done with out having to refer to some of the parts we wasn't meant to start on just to find out what screws to use.



The bit where I shut up
--------------------------

We have now had our unit for quite a while now; I have lost count of the amount of times that we have moved it around, yet it still is a strong, firm and sturdy as when it was first assembled. Several people have commented on how well it all fits in well together, how much it has improved the room, how much space it has given and above all, how much of a well thought out and useful design it is.

Below is a link to the product, but if you prefer to browse with the feel of pages flicking through your fingers than the item number is 610/2232, not sure of the page number (our kids eat catalogues) but it should be found close by or within the beech effect furniture.



http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/commerce/command /ExecMacro/ols_prod_detl.d2w/rep ort?prrfnbr=6102232&prmenbr=6970&type=big&thisMode =ols&cgrfnbr=69298

Summary: