MCM media rooms and the flat screen issue  

Since Heath's pledged to derail this thread no further,
I guess the task belongs to me:
Whitespike- I read a tweet recently that you may appreciate, seeing as you're both new parent & Breaking Bad fan:
"Jessie, if it's a girl. Mr. White, if it's a boy."

Whitespike -- How interesting...
Whitespike -- How interesting that you know so many vegetarians, both good and evil! I do hope you are able to recover from the continual abuse you suffer at the hands of mean ones that you apparently encounter on an regular basis.

"Would you find fault if the TV were instead a painting?"
I guess it all depends...

Rooms #1 & #3 are splendid,
but #2 is ALL wrong-- lacks mauve-velour EZ chair.

OMG!
#3 looks like my neighbors here inNew Mexico!! GACK!

Poor Olive.
Does the gorgeous climate & landscape of New Mexico make up for having to look at all those god-damned Dream Catchers?

I've always wanted to make a ...
I've always wanted to make a giant dream catcher out of a hula hoop. Seriously.

I'm late to this party
... and not sure that I want to stay for more than one drink, but I thought I'd address the original post. We don't have a flat panel TV, just an old CRT but I've never liked how the TV becomes the focal point of whatever room it's in. When we moved into our house, part of the original design is a room divider/ storage unit that defines the family room. It was not designed specifically for this purpose, but I saw the great opportunity to store and conceal our television, stereo and associated media.
I love the fact that I can put on a record, close the doors, and just let the music fill the space. The louvered doors allow the speakers to be heard without sounding muffled. And as a parent, when I tell my son that TV time is over I can turn it off, slide the door shut, and out of sight out of mind.
Now, as for the TV/ no TV argument, we do not subscribe to cable or satellite. We only get broadcast TV, and just a handful of channels at that. At least we get PBS (until the government de-funds it). We watch very little TV, and mostly use the TV to watch films when we have the time. Our local library has an amazing selection of movies. So I guess like other things we like but which might not be the best for you, we aim for moderation.

.
Impressed on both fronts.

Not to overstate the...
Not to overstate the obvious...
but a painting is not a TV.

Art is anything you can get away with, Scooby--
.

olive
Wow, that was a lot to read and not much about the actual topic.
Here's another screen filler-a nice fire
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fireplace+burning&aq=1

WTF, khus?
Who appointed you the Topic Police? None of my posts were particularly long and all of them were germaine to the evolution of the discussion. I care not for your opinion. Go away now.
w-h-c...well, I have to accept that the natural beauty here is astounding and the design sense is astoundingly awful.
So, what have we concluded here. My take is that we should just do our own thing as we usually do. Put in a TV size that you can visually tolerate (and are willing to pay for). If it's a 60" sucker, well then so be it. If it's a tiny little 21" then that's all good too. At the end of the day it's about your personal aesthetc sense and your interest in TV+movies. Balancing these two things is really all that matters.
That and apparently adhering to a strict code of conduct on Topic, of which I have committed a gross faux pas.

Poor typist
Olive,
Sorry I am at work and typing too fast without recognizing my poor sentence structure. First portion was meant for the entire thread and not you at all.
The fire screen link was for you, as you wrote about others you already use.

Well then, that's a horse of a different color...
My thanks for the link. Since I have a fireplace, I don't crave that for the TV. I would love a scene of crashing waves, though. I've been looking for one of those and not found anything good.