Around the Screen: Three New Media Consoles for the Season of Long Evenings

Three new media consoles arrive at Dantone Home, one from each of the Contempo, Pebble, and Textures collections. Each handles the television, the equipment, and the clutter of a full living room in its own way.

On the nights a whole household gathers in front of one screen, the piece under the television is asked to do more than hold it up. It has to take in the soundbar, the set-top box, the games console, the controllers that migrate across the room, and the cables that come with all of it. Three new consoles join Dantone Home this season, one from each of the Contempo, Pebble, and Textures collections, and each answers that brief differently.

Three consoles, three collections, one job: to carry the screen and absorb everything a full room brings to it

Contempo: Open Niches, Closed Drawers

The Contempo TV Cabinet is dark oak, with open niches along the top and three drawers beneath. The niches carry cable cut-outs at the back, which suits the equipment that needs air and a clear line to the remote: a receiver, a set-top box, a games console. The drawers take what should disappear between sittings, namely the controllers, the spare cables, the discs, and the remote nobody can find.

Each niche carries a cut-out at the back, so the cables leave without ever showing on the front

At 49 cm deep it holds a games console lying flat with room behind for cables. At 220 cm it is the widest of the three, which gives the largest screens a clean margin on either side.

The open niche keeps a games console aired and within reach of the remote, while the drawer below takes what should disappear between sittings

A single brass block holds the turned oak pull, the only metal on an otherwise plain front

Pebble: A Clean Front, the Deepest Inside

The Pebble Console works the other way. White oak, with rounded pebble ends and doors that close over an interior shelf, so the front stays unbroken and the equipment stays out of sight. At 60 cm it is the deepest of the three, with room for larger components and longer set-top boxes.

Rounded ends give the Pebble Console its name, lifted clear of the floor on turned oak posts

The closed front asks one thing in return. A games console that runs warm needs air, so the most heat-prone equipment is happier in an open piece, or with clearance left at the sides. A remote, too, reaches a closed cabinet through HDMI-CEC or an infrared repeater rather than a direct line of sight.

The rounded end opens to shelves that follow its curve, storage shaped to the form rather than cut against it

The limed oak keeps its grain open and pale against the rounded post that frames each end

Textures: Woven Fronts, Open Tops

The Textures Low Media Console is vintage black oak, with basket-weave door fronts and brass corners. Open niches run across the top for equipment that needs a clear line to the remote; the woven doors conceal the rest. At 45 cm it is the shallowest of the three, though a games console still fits lying flat.

Brass caps the foot of each leg, repeating the line of the pulls above the woven front

At 75 cm it also sits taller than the other two, closer to sideboard height. That lift carries the centre of the screen upward, which works in rooms where the sofa sits well back or the seating sits high, and the screen needs to rise to meet the eye.

Behind the woven doors the storage stays out of sight, while the niches above hold the equipment that needs air

The woven front holds more surface than a flat door, and a soft brush is enough to keep the weave clear

Each console is the media piece of a wider range: the Contempo, Pebble, and Textures collections continue beyond the screen

Matching the Console to the Screen

A console should be wider than the television, not the same width, so the screen is framed rather than balanced on a ledge. Television sizes are quoted as a diagonal, but the measurement that matters is the actual width, which for a 16:9 screen is roughly the diagonal multiplied by 0.87. Allow 10 to 15 cm of console beyond the screen on each side.