If men are from mars … … then that’s where women want to put their electronic toys.(last look).

Byline: Liz Dreher Howard

According to a recent article in The New York Times, “The average American household now owns some 25 consumer electronics products–televisions and stereos and high-tech gimcracks of every imaginable flavor.” Just recently, Panasonic introduced a 103-inch plasma screen television.

I don’t have a place in my house to get far enough away for my eyeballs to focus on a screen of that size, let alone a wall to put it on. But the last two large house projects I’ve worked on have used the great room idea to accommodate a very large-screen television. Now the homeowner can sit at the kitchen island with his morning coffee and enjoy the morning shows in a larger-than-life picture at the other end of the house.

I know I’m dating myself, but I remember the first televisions. They were in a console, which sat on the floor. It was a piece of furniture. Usually there was only one set in the house, and you had to get up to change the channel! I remember a client telling me she would never buy a television remote, because she was afraid she would get too lazy. Talk about the dark ages.

Then televisions became “mobile”; that is, they were on a stand. We figured out it was better to view a screen at eye level, because if the screen is low, the viewer’s eyelids are partially closed, and soon he is snoring. The stand had wheels, so you could drag the equipment all over the place, cords and all.

Later, the furniture industry re-entered the picture, and the armoire was re-fitted to accommodate the television. It was the right height for stay awake viewing and the woman in the house liked it because you could hide it.

Well, women may like to keep the television hidden, but men don’t. As electronic equipment has become more complex it has also become sleeker, and therefore more fun to feature. What man wants to spend big bucks and then not show off a home theater system composed of a 50-inch screen LCD TV, multiple speakers to provide surround sound and high-tech components? Fortunately, a new trend is wireless systems. Armed with such gear, you’ll no longer need to hide speaker wires under the rug or behind the sofa. This is a small gift to the woman of the house who is trying to save her beautiful wood floors.

The equipment is getting smaller, and the remotes are multi-functional–and the person who controls the remote rules. In my house, that means we can flip through all the channels during every commercial, and get back to the program we were watching just in time to miss a critical clue in the next segment of the program we were watching 10 minutes ago.

This seesaw over size extends to the music and computer worlds. Dad wants the biggest home theater he can accommodate at home, but everyone in the house has their own iPod, and who wants to listen to someone else’s tunes? Then there’s the computer: smaller laptops, larger flat-screen monitors, and no longer the big honker of a monitor and hard drive with all that unsightly mess of wiring. So home office furniture has to change to accommodate at least one computer, a printer/copier/scanner/fax, phone with answering machine and maybe a television. And then the debate over whether to hide away or show it off? This is where the gender gap appears.

Well, it’s a challenge to keep up with technology as a designer, as well as a homeowner and consumer. Now, if I can move my husband’s lounge chair just so, he will be able to watch the Super Bowl on the neighbor’s large-screen television from our living room.

Liz Dreher Howard, FASID, is president of Howard Design Group. Call 808-732-4915 or e-mail Liz@howarddesign.net.