In life, there’s a lot of big choices to make: what to do after high school, what your dream job should be, if you should pay extra for guacamole on your burrito, what size TV stand you need… Okay, some of those aren’t as life-changing as others, but they deserve having thought put into them all the same. The right-sized TV stand can make a big impact both on your television viewing and the layout & cleanliness of the rest of your living room. In a lot of cases, having the wrong TV stand can leave you lacking for storage space or make it hard to arrange the rest of your living room furniture around it. Ready to find the perfect TV stands for your living room, den, or anywhere else? Read on: Understand what room it’s going in This question requires more than just deciding it’s going into the living room. Figure out what the room is mostly used for, and where it’s going. For example, is your living room full of couches and places to set drinks that may be displaced by the addition of a TV stand? Is the TV stand going into a dining room or other common area where TV is often watched? What will you need to move around to fit the TV stand better? Take a look around and assess what you’re going to need to shuffle around due to the addition of the TV stand. Map out the size of your TV The right TV stand should be proportionately sized to the TV that’ll be sitting on it. Generally, you want to take the diagonal measurements of the TV and find a TV stand two inches smaller. For example, a 30 in TV would require a TV stand at least 28 inches wide to accommodate for screen size. Use these dimensions to measure out the available space in whatever room the TV stand is going into and make sure you have a safe fit. Find out what furniture has to be moved Even if your new TV stand is smaller than the previous one, you may need to relocate a lot of furniture to keep everything tidy, organized, and aesthetically pleasing. If your new TV stand is smaller, you might want to rearrange some end tables to fill in the gaps left over by the old stand. If your couch feels too cramped, try moving your coffee table or see if there’s a better angle to face the couch at to free up space. You don’t have to totally redecorate your living room (no matter how badly you want to) but making sure the new TV stand doesn’t have a big impact on everything else is going to save you a lot of trouble. Make sure you’re not short on storage Finally, a new TV stand might leave some of your old electronics suddenly without a place to stay. Make sure you’re not sacrificing a safe place to keep your cable box & modem, as well as any video game systems, Blu-ray players, or other electronics that used to live near your old TV. This could be a good excuse to clean up some of that cable clutter that can build up behind any TV, and prevent things like tangled HDMI cables and over-stuffed surge protectors. Have you gotten a new TV stand lately? Let us know how it went in the comments below!