How Often Do You Upgrade Your Entertainment Center?

Recently I wrote a post about our family toy clean up.  The clean up primarily involved the toy storage that has been taking over our family entertainment system.  I have always wanted to update, or better yet upgrade, my entertainment center.  The one in our family room has been in my family for over 20 years!  I even remember when my parents brought it home from Levitz and I watched as my dad put it together.  Don't get me wrong, this type of entertainment center was very popular in the eighties, even the nineties perhaps.  You know the kind - solid oak with a cut out in the bottom half that is a perfect fit for your tube television.  Back then we preferred our televisions as close to the floor as possible - who knew that one day they would be hung on our walls as pretty as a picture?  Below is a picture of my well loved family entertainment center:

Even though it still looks like that classic eighties solid oak I have managed to make a few updates to it.  First off I removed those ugly tinted glass doors and let it be open.  Then I spent about $150 on matching wicker baskets of varying shapes and sizes to fill the gaps.  These baskets have come in quite handy for hiding toys, games and art supplies out of sight.  The biggest problem space is the spot for the tube tv on the bottom.  I have a pretty big basket there and it still has a huge gap.  This has been the biggest eye sore for me.

This solid oak has held up really great over the years so I really have no complaints when it comes to durability.  I think that is one of my biggest fears about buying a new entertainment center.  Most that I can afford right now are made of cheap pressboard and are trashed in only a couple of years.  I know that my trusty oak beauty has held up through the test of time and I would hate to part with it for one that falls apart so quickly.

Being a woman of style I have often dreamed of what I envision replacing my old entertainment center.  I have always been a fan of the corner entertainment center.  I really like how they look and that by minimizing itself in the corner it opens the rest of the room up.  Plus it tend to hide excess cords really well too.  The biggest problem with a corner unit in my opinion is that we couldn't hang our LCD TV on the wall directly behind, we would have to put it on its stand.  I really like how the TV looks on the wall so this is the deal breaker for me.  All though if  I could find a gorgeous corner TV stand with mount to place the TV on that would solve my problem.  However, its hard to find this combination and in a setup that I like.  Most are very small and I want a big one.

If I could pick any new entertainment center I would most likely go with a Walker Edison stand, like the one pictured above.  It's solid wood so it would be sturdy and built to last longer than cheap pressboard.  I love that it has storage options that are visible as well as hidden.  I can also use the top for other components and it would look great with my TV hanging on the wall above or on setting on the stand itself.  This Walker Edison stand in particular can hold a 52 inch TV, which one day we hope to get, so that aligns perfectly with what my husband envisions for the family room.  When he and I can agree on something that is always a bonus!

For now, I think my old oak entertainment center will do just fine.  Its a love/hate relationship that I have with it.  I love that its durable, hate that its ugly.  I love that my boys can do anything to it and I won't gasp in shock at their attempts to destroy it, hate that it's ugly.  Oh wait, I said that all ready.  I have to say though that its such a part of my personal family history, that no matter what, it will be a sad day when I actually have to post it for sale on Craigslist. *sniff*

So what about you?  How often do you upgrade your entertainment center?  Is it an eighties throw back like mine or a sleek and sophisticated one like my dream entertainment center?