I dont have one on my counter but I have seen undercounter mount Flat screens that swivel and flip up when not in use. Circuit city sells them.

I have this Samsung 15" flat panel LCD TV attached to a swivel mount on the wall so that it can be turned toward the kitchen or toward the breakfast table. I can cook with Ina or have coffee with Meredith & Matt.

This is all so helpful. I also like the idea of a flip down TV, but as momj47 pointed out, the under counter lighting is an issue. We just purchased an IHome radio/Ipod player for the kitchen, and I can't find a place to attach it without moving the lighting! (Not to get OT, but I got a great deal on it, $49 online from Circuit City, if anyone is interested, but again, where to mount it is an issue.)

The Aquos seems like a good thing for us to look at (I am going to look online for it right now), although the wall-mount Samsung that coolbeans shows looks great.

Thanks to all of you, and show me more!

I have the Aquos and would never go without it!

We just finished a kitchen/dining reno and location of the unit was of prime importance! Layout was planned around it!

We built a niche to run the electric and cable and mounted the TV so it covers the niche if pushed flush to the wall. It can be viewed from my sink, the banquette eating area and the dining room table.

When it no longer operates I will probably get a slightly bigger unit since age is affecting my vision :You need to have approx 21" width x 12"high area along with electric and cabling, if you use, for the unit I have.

The Samsung and Aquos look identical to me. I removed the stand and bought a separate wall-mounting bracket at Best Buy.

Sharp doesn't seem to be making the 15-inch Aquos anymore. I can't seem to find it anywhere, except a used one on ebay and a refurbished one somewhere else. Even the Sharp site doesn't list an Aquos as small as 15 inches. Boo hoo for me. I'll keep looking around. TVs this small in general seem sort of hard to find.

Thanks for your suggestions.

I just went through this. There are not a lot of small (15") tvs on the market right now because they are getting ready for the new digital requirements that go into effect in Feb. 2009 and it seems like they started with the big tvs and are working their way down.

I started out looking for a flip down/under the cabinet unit. There are two ways to do this: you can buy a small lcd tv & a flip-down mount separately or you can buy an all-in-one unit designed to fit under the cabinet. Option 1 wouldn't work because I could not find a tv on the market now that was short enough to fit within the 12" depth of the cabinets. Even the all-in-one units designed to go under cabinets seemed to be too deep, and those also tended to be bulkier (you would be able to see it hanging down below your cabinets even when the screen is flipped up) and to have smaller screens. I finally ruled out the flip-down option altogether when I realized there's no way to fit both undercabinet lights & a flip down tv in the same section.

I then considered mounting an lcd tv to my backsplash so it could flip out or be pushed back flat against the backsplash, but eliminated this option also because it wouldn't save that much space & I didn't want to put permanent holes in the backsplash.

In the end, I just got a 19" Sharp lcd and have it sitting in the corner of my counter. It really doesn't take up that much space since I can't reach into the corner anyway. I decided 19" was ok because it's still short enough to fit underneath the cabinets. The one "gadget" feature it has is a magnetic remote control with a timer on it -- idea is that you could stick it to the fridge or take it to another room so you can hear the timer go off. The electrician installed both cable & power outlets behind the tv, but we haven't had the cable hooked up yet so I can't say how it works yet! I do not want a cable box on the counter (that's a whole other issue), so I'm just going to take whatever programming I can get without it.

There's another new technology called a "cable card" which cable companies are required to offer as an alternative to the big bulky box, but not many tvs are built to be cable card compatible yet, the ones that are seem very expensive, and I definitely couldn't find one small enough for the kitchen.

Here's what our set up looks like:

Is your laptop plugged into the internet while you're in the kitchen? I watch tv in my current kitchen using my computer monitor. We have cable internet and so the feed is already there. New computers can have the card put in. Mine was too old, not enough brains to handle that, so I got a separate box with a remote. It's very nice to have a tv in the kitchen and definitely something I'm doing in the new one! Funny thing is, where I THOUGHT I was putting the tv isn't where it seems like it ought to go anymore...

Wow, Hoffman, this all sounds much more complicated than I thought. Thanks for your very informative answer. With technology changing so quickly, maybe I should just buy a used Aquos for about $100, and wait for the new generation of tvs to come out next year. Since we stupidly didn't count on putting a tv in there, there is no cable or anything. We have satellite tv, and I'm sure we could run a wire, but I'd better ask my husband what other kinds of wiring or gizmos all of this would entail. Nothing is ever easy.

Very nice kitchen on your part, by the way, hoffman, as well as coolbeans and momj47.

I just learned how to post pictures today, so it's like a new toy to me - ha! Here is the tv in our kitchen. At first, I fought my husband on this, but we do use it a lot more than I ever thought. {{gwi:1583743}}

I've had my 15" Sharp for just over 5 years. LOVE it! The quality of the picture is second to none. I have a 32" Vizio in the bedroom. It's ok and I'm happy with the purchase but it's not the quality of the Aquos. For Christmas, Santa brought me a 23" Samsung for the new master "home spa". Samsung is highly recommended. Neck to neck with Sharp.

I planned for mine from the start. Its own place of honor.

We've got the same 19" Sharp as Hoffman, but in black. Same corner, fits perfectly. Cable hook up is inside the above cabinet, no box required. The corner is a perfect location, as nothing else goes on over there. Got it on Black Friday for $249!

Ours is a 20" Costco Viseo on a swivel mount. The second picture is dark but shows it extended out so that it can be seen while prepping food on the counter to the right.

I really hate the large satellite box.

Oops, meant to say "Vizeo."