I think depending on the style a dresser in the family, dining, or living room is fine. If they are accessorized well they are a good fit. A large TV on top with some buffet lights, etc. would look great. I have my TV in an armoire in my family room and the large matching mirror is over my fireplace, these were 2 pieces I bought out of a bedroom set many years ago...works for me.

I had my Mom put an old dresser drawer in her dining room and she loves it as she keeps table linens it it and decorates the top of it.

I say GO FOR IT!!!

I have a 1940s French sideboard (buffet) with a flatscreen TV sitting on top. It's the perfect height for the TV and the drawers and cabinets are perfect for CDs, DVDs and books. The sideboard is flamed mahogany which works well in my living room. I think if you stick to a style that is similar to your living room furnishings, it should work. Have fun!

I think it sounds lovely. Here are some modern versions, but I could see it looking great with an antique dresser as well.

Here is a link that might be useful: tv, dresser, lamp

I don't think you want something that screams "bedroom dresser." Look for a sideboard/buffet piece instead. Today, so many people don't have the space for that dining room accessory piece, so with a bit of sleuthing you should be able to find a nice piece out there through Craigslist or consignment shops. Bear in mind, too, that sideboards will give you a better size, proportionately, for that wall as well as offer better storage space, because usually the shelves inside are adjustable. A bedroom dresser's drawers won't do much for you.

I don't have a dresser in my family room, but do have two antique mahogany ones in my dining room and they look great in there. Chests of drawers can, IMO, be repurposed for a variety of uses, as long as they don't scream 'bedroom'. Although we didn't have to with ours, one can always replace drawer pulls to give a dresser an updated, non-bedroomy look. My tall one holds, candles, candle holders, tablecloths and runners, etc.
The longer, low dresser has glass cut to fit the top of it and is used as a buffet. It's drawers hold my silverware, napkin rings, placemats, etc. As you can see in the pic below, one might easily substitute a (small) flat screen tv for the painting and it would look great in a family room, as you're describing. The only caveat would be to keep the dresser that you're using in proportion with the size of the tv. And, to figure out where you're going to put the components. I don't have pictures of it, but have seen examples where some very handy person took out the dresser's drawers and added shelves inside to hold all the components. They then remade the drawer fronts into doors for the unit.

People use dressers as consoles ALL the time. You'd need to find the right "look" to pull it off tho. I think nightstands or dinningroom tables used as coffee or end tables, which are too tall....look silly in a livingroom situation,(decorators do "this" in magazine layouts all the time). Proportion, size, shapes can not be ignored when achieving a pulled together look. ....JMHO

I think it would look great. Before we moved our TV into the living room, we had it in a den and we used an antique bureau. It was very simple, nothing fancy or bedroom-ish about it as far as I was concerned. We also removed the top drawer of the bureau and turned the space into a shelf for the DVD player and cable box. Worked great!

This is mine. I think perhaps it is larger than it looks in this photo since all the furniture (and the room itself) is large scale! The piece of furniture is 78" long, the wall between the windows is 8 feet wide. The 'buffet' houses the 52" plasma TV and all the ancillary electronics. Please excuse the blank wall behind the buffet and the temporary accessories, I am waiting for the right piece of art. I hope this helps at least a little.

Thank you everyone for your feedback. It sounds like I need to consider scale of the piece, storage of the components and maybe a sideboard/buffet piece that doesn't "scream bedroom" as pammyfay suggested. I like the idea as suggested that a buffet would probably give me shelving as well. The ideas on storing the components in a reconfigured drawer were very clever!

Sis3-I love the scale of your room and a long piece such as yours is what I had in mind. (Hopefully not too deep though as it would interfere with a walkway in and out of the room.)

This is my first posting and I'm really impressed with everyone's advice and insight. Thanks for taking the time to answer!

While I don't have a dresser in my FR, I do have an antique nightstand. I originally bought in on CL for my DD's room, but the dimensions didn't work the way I planned. I had no other space for it, but didn't want to get rid of it so placed it "temporarily" in my FR, but it's now here to stay. It works great, we love the storage. I think what makes it work is that I have another antique mahogany end table (round) in the room--though by and large it's more a collected look.

I think it's more how you decorate around the piece that makes it work. If you put up a mirror or two buffet lamps it will scream either bedroom or DR, but as long as you decorate it more as you would a console table, I think it will work fine. It will also help if you have a few other pieces in the room of similar style and/or wood.