Find me a long, low, cheap, and sturdy tv stand.

March 18, 2007 1:38 PM

Trying to find a long, low tv stand for relatively cheap....

I've recently moved into my (first) one bedroom apartment and have a tv on the floor and a 10 gallon fish tank on a somewhat unstable ikea table. I'd like to combine these and find a long (6 or 7 feet) and low shelf/tv stand to put both on side by side.

The closest approximation I've seen thus far is the LACK ikea shelf which you can lie horizontally. However, it's got a listed maximum weight of 110lbs, while the fish tank and tv together are just under 200lbs.

I'm in Vancouver, BC, bonus if it's a dark colour, and I don't have a very large budget for this.

posted by sinical to home & garden (11 comments total)

I would search second hand stores for or narrow dining table and saw the legs to the height you need.

I would imagine you could make you own with a solid-core door from the hardware store. You could place it on filing cabinets for storage or some other piece of short, sturdy furniture.

I think if you list the measurements of the TV, people can help out better. Good luck.
posted by LoriFLA at 2:05 PM on March 18, 2007

The first sentence should be: a desk or a narrow dining table...
posted by LoriFLA at 2:07 PM on March 18, 2007

How about this one (100kg load) or two of these pushed up side by side?
posted by sanitycheck at 2:08 PM on March 18, 2007

We could not find a "TV stand" that would accomodate our TV in a way we liked. We ended up buying something that is intended to be a dining room buffet or something. It works great. It is much wider than a normal TV stand. I had one of these years ago that was much, much wider, probably the 7 feet you are looking for. I found it in a thrift store or a consignment store or something, years ago.
posted by RustyBrooks at 3:18 PM on March 18, 2007

Hmm, looking at the shelf you listed, looks like you want something really low. A buffet would not suit, unless maybe you took off the legs or something.

For that price point I think I'd have to make something. Something like you have on your picture could be made carefully with a circular saw. Probably one sheet of plywood (say, $30-40 for nice paint grade plywood) and some paint. If you bought something like nice birch plywood, you could probably even get away without paint if you sanded the edges nicely (you might have to do a little filling on the edges). Plywood is glued together in layers, oriented in opposite directions. When it's finished with polyurethane or something similar, this gives you bands of light and dark. It's actually kind of nice. Starbucks furniture is often something like that. You can laminate two pieces of it together for a double-thickness piece (basically, glue one face to another) and that often looks very nice and is very solid.

You might need 2 sheets, actually, if all the parts of it are sort of "double-thickness" like the one pictured. If you made it yourself out of plywood, using glue and screws, it would support a lot more weight than the ikea version. The design of the Ikea unit is simple enough for most people to replicate, I think.

I'd be happy to help you with any design/building advice, my email is in my profile, or I could add more here.
posted by RustyBrooks at 3:25 PM on March 18, 2007

Try Henley's furniture by the Rona on Grandview Hwy. They have catalogues and can have stuff built for you. Talk to the staff, as they can order way more than they stock.

Also, I cannot remember the name of it, but a couple of months ago, I bought a dark brown TV bench from Ikea. It has frosted glass doors. It's very wide. I think it was around $150. I saw them on sale at the Ikea in Richmond last time I was there...perhaps for $120? It has shelves inside and you can store a lot of stuff in there -- books, stereo, DVD, etc.
posted by acoutu at 3:29 PM on March 18, 2007

If you make your own use plywood, its laminated strucuture is the best at supporting weight in such situations. You can buy a veneer tape to trim the edge so that you don't see the laminations.
posted by caddis at 5:17 PM on March 18, 2007

You can get thick marine ply which will hold a great deal of weight, then screw & glue some timber underneath. I made a coffee table for home like this, which can stand a terrific amount of weight, but also looks good after staining & sanding.
posted by tomble at 11:03 PM on March 18, 2007

You definitely have more options than you think at IKEA. The mister and I are going to get the BONDE bench and hutch (in medium brown) from the Coquitlam store.
posted by deborah at 3:39 PM on March 19, 2007

Just as follow up to this, I took sanitycheck's suggestion and bought 2 KLUBBO's from IKEA and pushed them together. It's quite low, but does the trick.

If I was more handy and had some sort of access to woodworking equipment (ie didn't live in an apartment in a major, densely populated city) I probably would have tried to make my own.

Now that this is resolved, I just need to figure out what to do with the rest of my apartment.
posted by sinical at 10:33 PM on March 22, 2007

Apartment Therapy
posted by deborah at 4:01 AM on March 23, 2007