If you are searching garage sales or second hand stores in search of an entertainment centre you will need to be aware of certain things. Many of the entertainment centers that are ending up in garage sale and discount centers are not built for wide screen televisions. This can create difficulty if you are trying to find a discounted entertainment centre or if you are trying to sell an older entertainment center.

My husband and I are the proud owners of a solid oak entertainment set. The only problem is, is that the hole for the TV is a perfect square. Originally, this entertainment centre probably cost around $2000, but when a friend of ours couldn’t even sell it for $300 she gave it over to us. They had replaced their old, box style television with an extra-wide, flat screen television, which simply didn’t fit in the entertainment centre. In truth, the only reason we got such a fine piece of furniture for free was because it was not built for a wide screen television. In the end we were able to make the oak center work because our small wide screen fit in the hole with just a few inches on either side and was then set on top of a stereo to give the set extra height.

This is the problem with buying entertainment sets from garage sales or second hand stores; they were all built for old, square television sets. This really is a shame because there are many lovely entertainment set made of solid wood, displaying beautiful craftsmanship, that are obsolete. In a way, these entertainment sets are becoming antiques because they are almost entirely nonfunctional.

If you are a creative project person, you may be able to modernize some of the older entertainment sets so that they can accommodate a wide screen television. This would be a great way of reclaiming a piece of older wood furniture but it would take time and cost money. Your safest bet is to have your television measurements on hand to make sure that you don’t purchase something too small.