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"It&amp;#039;s been called a lot of names\u2014the boob tube and idiot box are just two. It&amp;#039;s also been worshiped, fought over, analyzed, and decried ever since it was invented in 1927 and popularized in the 1950s. But one thing&amp;#039;s for sure: In the modern world, you can&amp;#039;t really escape television. It&amp;#039;s everywhere. And that is precisely the problem. You want to own a TV\u2014some would say you have to own a TV\u2014but you don&amp;#039;t want it to take over the living room, or any other part of the house, for that matter. This qualifies as a decorating dilemma. The old solution was to plop it down on a stand and be done with it. Then came the entertainment armoire, a large, lumbering thing that wasn&amp;#039;t fooling anybody about its contents. These days, things are changing fast. Plasma TVs have arrived, and with them, television hardware has gone on a diet\u2014so much that there&amp;#039;s no more tube in the latest boob tubes. They&amp;#039;re also smart as a whip. Sleek and slim, plasmas have opened up a new world of furniture options. Here are our favorite pieces for hiding, minimizing, and integrating your prized TV into your carefully crafted decor. &amp;quot;Emotionally, you have two different types of people,&amp;quot; says Century Furniture&amp;#039;s Ed Tashjian, &amp;quot;the hide people and the display people. Some feel it&amp;#039;s embarrassing to have a huge television\u2014like you&amp;#039;re a couch potato with bad taste. So they want it hidden. For others, it&amp;#039;s a sign of status.&amp;quot;      The sleek Verona wall unit, $6,400 from Excelsior, hides your television behind a frosted-glass panel framed in palisander wood.    It&amp;#039;s Tony Bennet on the TV. No, it&amp;#039;s artwork! Actually, it&amp;#039;s both. With VisionArt, $7,500 to $8,500, art printed on canvas retracts\u2014like motorized roller blinds\u2014to reveal your plasma TV. Now that&amp;#039;s entertainment!     We know there are lots of folks in the former camp, which is why there&amp;#039;s been a huge boost in furniture that hides TVs\u2014but not in the traditional wall unit sense. Now, thanks to a remote control and swanky internal mechanisms, you can make your TV rise from inside a cabinet or console and retract it when not in use. Doubling as an attractive wooden console, Century&amp;#039;s Chapparal TV Lift Cabinet, $17,225, does just that. It has a fine 30-step finish, and an infrared sensor means you don&amp;#039;t need to leave the doors open to change channels. Concealed Concepts tucks away various sizes of TVs into consoles made of fine wood, from Australian maple to mahogany. We like the deluxe model\u2014the Figure 8 Plasma, $8,680\u2014with futuristic yet simple curves that accommodate a 50-inch monitor. For something a bit more traditional, Hooker Furniture&amp;#039;s Plasma TV Hideaway Console, $4,599 with side units, seems to suspend the television in midair when activated. Your TV needn&amp;#039;t be completely invisible to get the toned-down effect. Many new models are designed to minimize the presence of the TV, incorporating it into your space without too much fanfare. We like Bush Furniture&amp;#039;s Millennium Video Base\u2014at $299, it&amp;#039;s minimal in both look and price. Made from a glamorous silvery metal, the compact profile doesn&amp;#039;t encroach on other areas of the room, and it can easily fit any size television.      Masquerading as a piece of sculpture, you&amp;#039;d never imagine this baby holds a TV. At the push of a button, though, the Figure 8 Plasma, $8,680 from Concealed Concepts, pops up a plasma TV, creating a unique marriage of form and function without dominating your decor.    Available in three finishes, Hooker&amp;#039;s Plasma TV Hideaway Console, $4,599 with side units, hides a 42-inch plasma when not in use; it rises from inside when you&amp;#039;re ready to watch. Another bonus: The television looks like it&amp;#039;s suspended in midair,      Excelsior Furniture&amp;#039;s Verona, $6,400, an architectural wall unit made of maple, nicely plays down the TV&amp;#039;s presence. A frosted-glass panel, framed by dark palisander wood, slides back and forth in front of the television. A larger wood frame around much of the surrounding shelving seems to be a witty reference to the television itself\u2014it&amp;#039;s a box within a box within a box. This unit has depth to spare, so it can hold your existing television as well as a plasma TV. And you won&amp;#039;t feel compelled to cover the television at all times, since it actually appears to be a natural part of the unit itself. As technology improves, integration\u2014or, completely incorporating the television within another format\u2014may represent the future of the TV dilemma. You might say it&amp;#039;s a fine art to make this work, so what better way to do it than with artwork itself? A company called VisionArt did just that. They developed a unique concept: Motorized prints on canvas\u2014that retract like roller blinds\u2014cover a wall-mounted plasma TV. The prints actually move up and down at the touch of a remote so you can admire a landscape watercolor one moment and laugh at David Letterman the next. With 300 prints to choose from and a variety of frame options, you&amp;#039;re sure to find something that suits your fancy (there&amp;#039;s anything from a resting cheetah to geishas at play). It&amp;#039;ll cost you about $7,500 to $8,500, frame included.      Century&amp;#039;s Chapparal TV Lift Cabinet, $17,225, is at once a cabinet and an entertainment system: The television screen comes into view via a swanky hydraulic system within.   Show off your flat-panel TV in style with Bush&amp;#039;s Millennium Video Base, $299. You can even suspend the TV several inches above the unit with matching hardware. See Resource Guide for details.     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<http://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/room-ideas/a1078/disappearing-act-17543/>