How to Work a Television Into Your Decor
It took our writer a full year to figure out where to put her television and if you care about good design, chances are you can empathize. Here, what she learned about incorporating a TV into a room without totally killing your style.
My friends are going to laugh when they see the subject of this article. It took my husband and I an epic year after moving into our new house to figure out where to put the TV. The lovely armoire that concealed the 100-pound tube TV in our old condo sadly didn't make it through the doorway of our new place, a 100-plus-year-old rowhome in Philadelphia. Rowhomes are narrow and long, making them tricky when it comes to arranging furniture. Our living room only has one wall to work with since one side of the room is the dining area; one wall is dominated by a giant window; and a third wall is a pass-through to the rest of the house whose flow we didn't want to disrupt. Without the armoire to conceal it, the old TV would've dominated the remaining wall, so we sold it on Craigslist the day we moved in, figuring we'd get a flat-screen as soon as we figured out where to put it.
Here are the options we considered: mounting it above the fireplace (too high and, as Rachel Zoe would say, "I die"); mounting it to the left of the fireplace (too permanent a solution for something we weren't ready to commit to); putting it in the guest room on the third floor (too far away from the kitchen); putting it in our bedroom (I hate the idea of having a TV in the bedroom); or continuing to use our computers (the screens are woefully small for movie-watching). We consulted friends. We consulted relatives. I consulted fellow design-writers. One tempting piece of advice -- to buy a projector TV and project images above the fireplace -- required keeping that space blank and I had my heart set on a giant mirror to open up the room.Finally, last month, when my sister-in-law asked that burning question, "Have you gotten a TV yet?," I was able to answer in the affirmative. I'd found a subtle, smallish enough TV stand at Pier I Imports, and our new 32-inch flat-screen was perched on it in one corner of our living room. The first night we had TV, my husband and I were so enthralled after a year without it, we couldn't turn off "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"
While a study released last month showed that more and more people are getting their content from web-based resources rather than cable, there are no signs that TV watching or TV sales are abating. According to DisplaySearch, just over 42 million TVs were sold in North America in 2009, and more than 45 million are forecast to be sold in 2010. Since others are presumably going through the same conundrum my husband and I did – where to put the ugly but necessary thing and all its equally heinous accessories? – I consulted a few designers and an audio-visual specialist for tips on how to best incorporate a TV into your decor. Here's what I learned:
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