Torino Corner TV Unit: fitting a screen in an awkward room

The Torino Corner TV Unit is listed at 80 x 40 x 65cm, within a Torino size list that also shows 180 x 40 x 50cm, 120 x 40 x 50cm and 92 x 40 x 50cm. The listing gives sizes and nothing else, so what follows is those figures and the practical side of standing a television in a corner.

When the corner is the only space left

Corner units are less often a style choice than people assume. They are what you reach for when a chimney breast occupies the middle of the long wall, when a bay window takes the only wall the sofa faces, when two doors open into the same end of a room, or when a radiator sits exactly where the screen ought to go. If any of that describes your room, measure the corner before you give up on the layout you want.

The figures, exactly as the listing gives them

The corner unit is the odd one out in the third figure, 65cm against 50cm. The listing does not label its figures, so take them as printed and have the shop confirm which one is the height. On a corner unit that is the figure that decides whether the picture ends up at the right level for the seat you watch from.

Power, aerial and cables behind a corner piece

This is where corner installations come unstuck. The deepest point of the unit sits in the angle of the two walls, which is the least reachable spot in the room, and it is rarely where the aerial socket happens to be. Before delivery, work out which wall the power and the aerial come from, and whether the lead is long enough to run along the skirting to the back of the unit instead of across the floor. A right-angled plug and a short extension decided in advance saves shifting a loaded unit afterwards.

Getting it into the room, and what to ask

Mark 60cm out from the internal corner along both walls. That is roughly what an 80cm front face consumes on each side once it sits across the angle, and it shows you straight away whether a pipe, an architrave or a floor vent is in the way. Then put the questions the listing does not answer to the shop: what the unit is made from, what finish it comes in, whether the space beneath the top is open or shelved, and how it arrives. Delivery is free within 50 miles of our Glasgow store and £50 beyond.

The straight Torino sizes

If a corner is not forced on you, the Torino Small TV Unit at 92cm and the Torino Large TV Unit at 120cm are the straight versions, and the Lucca Corner TV Unit is listed at the same 80 x 40 x 65cm in the other range. Photographs and the size list are on the Torino Corner TV Unit page, with the rest of the TV units beside it.