Where To Place a TV in a Living Room

Have you considered the ideal location for your TV yet? If you haven’t, you’re missing out on a lot. Finding the perfect placement to optimize your TV’s picture can significantly enhance how your favorite TV shows, video games, movies, etc., appear. While a carefully selected TV location will make images appear vivid and bright, the screen can look washed out and murky if placed in an ill-lit area.

Fortunately, you don't need to engage the services of an interior designer to make the most out of your TV-watching area. With a little foresight, creativity, and the zeal to rearrange stuff in your space, you're well on discovering the best place for your TV. We are eager to guide you on the essential steps.

Factors To Consider When Placing a TV

These are the essential things to factor in when choosing the best position for your TV:

The Room’s Layout

The size of your home or apartment influences not just where you put your TV but also what TV you should buy, as you may not have many options regarding the available space for placing your TV. Keep the distance to TV size ratio in mind when shopping for a new TV. While choosing the biggest TV possible may seem like the best idea, you don't want your TV to take up too much room.

Is your room laid out? Where on the walls are the doors and windows? Your television should ideally be positioned away from busy areas to prevent glare from sunlight coming through the windows. Before locating studs and making holes in your wall, ensure that you experiment with placement.

Your Furniture

Would you like to honor your television on the side or make it the center of attention in your room? You can encourage your family and friends to watch television by positioning the chairs so they face the screen, or you can encourage conversation by positioning the chairs so they face each other, using the TV arranged diagonally from the sofa as its chatty corner.

The Television

If you envisage a 3D TV in your home anytime soon, you should make enough room for a large TV. As was already established, modern TVs are smaller than in the past. Whether it is in the heart of an entertainment center or overhanging the blazing fireplace, the size of your television can tremendously assist you in choosing the optimum location for it.

Make sure your TV's location won't interfere with your viewing. For instance, they can appear blurry if looking at LCD TVs directly. So, ensure you can watch TV without problems from any seat or angle in the room.

Essential Tips for Television Placement

Here’s how to determine the best place for your television:

Locate a Power Source

Find the nearest power supply to the area where you plan to place your TV. Ensure a sufficient power supply to support add-ons, such as Blu-ray players and sound systems. You should also consider the location of the windows and the amount of screen glare.

Avoid Excess Light

The deadliest adversary of a TV display is reflections. High-definition, bright, and dynamic video can appear muted and muddy when too much light from a window or lighting fixture is shining on your TV. Additionally, placing your TV immediately in front of a window is not recommended because the sunlight may interfere with your ability to see the screen, straining your eyes.

The majority of contemporary TVs have glossy panels, which accentuate these problems whether you have an OLED or LED TV. In ideal circumstances, they provide images with greater richness and contrast but are more vulnerable to reflections. If your TV is next to a window, you must draw the shades each time you want to watch something during the day. That somewhat defeats the purpose of those gorgeous windows.

The ideal location for your TV is one where the screen won't be directly exposed to sunlight or bothersome reflections. This means that your living room's windows should be parallel to one another and, ideally, some distance from your couch and TV. You'll get the greatest picture possible if you let your TV light itself.

Consider Your Eye Level

For the optimum viewing experience, you should also consider the height at which you should place your TV in relation to your couch. It would be best if you placed your TV so the center of the screen is at eye level because craning your neck up or tilting it down for an extended amount of time might strain your neck. Try pasting an outline on your wall and staring at it from your couch if you're unsure what seems right. You might be surprised by where you end up placing it (high or low).

Find a Focal Point

If your TV serves as the room's focal point, put it in the middle of the seating area. Consider putting any additional focal points, such as a mantle or a lovely window, on the wall next to the main one so that viewers can still enjoy them.

Conceal It

Consider placing your television in a cabinet or armoire with doors that can close if you want it to be out of the way or if you want to be able to conceal it quickly. Make sure all the cords can pass through holes in the back, or drill some yourself. Also, if you have children utilizing the cabinet, make sure it is simple to open and close.

Make It Part of Your Decor

Placing your television on a piece of furniture like a bookcase and surrounding it with artifacts, artwork, and photos will help it blend into your décor. Surround it with a gallery wall of black-framed photographs or works of art to further integrate it.

Flip It

Buy a small television that can be installed beneath cabinets and moved up or down as necessary if you wish to have one in a space like a kitchen. These can be used in offices at home or in dens.

Consider the Mantel

Most decorators will advise against mounting your television on or above the mantel. In addition to being excessively high, you've placed a large, black screen directly in the center of the room's most effective focal point. It is now popular, and many people appear to enjoy it. Get a flatscreen and attach it to the wall if you decide to place your TV above the mantel rather than placing it on a stand directly on the fireplace.

Can I Put My TV Above a Fireplace?

Whether you should position your TV over the fireplace is often debated in interior design. Some people think the two main focal areas work together harmoniously. Others believe TVs take attention away from the fireplace, a typical spot for social gatherings.

However, you should never set your TV above your fireplace as that will amount to mounting it too high and predispose you to neck strain. It’s unwise to sacrifice comfort and pain-free life for living room aesthetics.

Again, you'll need to put more effort into preparation if you want to position your TV above the fireplace rather than on another wall. It would be best to determine where your cable box and other set-top devices belong and how to conceal wires. That's too much unnecessary stress, in our opinion.

Additionally, positioning it on top of a fireplace runs the risk of causing soot and heat damage. Soot won't be a big deal if your fireplace runs on gas. However, please pay attention to how warm your fireplace's surrounding wall becomes when it's blazing. At all costs, you should avoid raising the temperature of your TV because doing so could reduce its longevity. If you choose to follow this path, the fireplace can distract you if it is on while you are watching TV.

However, there are some cases where placing the TV above the fireplace may be a great idea:

Your Fireplace Doesn’t Heat Up

You can probably hang your TV above a fireplace that produces very little heat, like an electric or a gel fireplace. You can always use a temperature gun to compare the heat output of your fireplace to what your TV instruction specifies as acceptable. Additionally, you can mount your TV in the area above your fireplace if you don't intend to use it or if it isn't functioning.

You Have a Tight Room Space

You might wish to position the TV over the fireplace if you need to make the most of a limited living area. Instead of attempting to split the seating sections around the TV and fireplace, this can help the layout by providing the room with one central focus point. Additionally, it does away with the requirement for a TV stand, which would require floor space.

Jacks and Cables are Located Above the Fireplace

Homes will occasionally be constructed with a TV-specific recessed nook above the fireplace. The niche has all the jacks and outlets you need to connect your TV. Naturally, this eliminates any challenging and perhaps problematic wiring work. It would be up to you to decide if the viewing angle suits you and whether the heat from your fireplace would be too much for a TV.

Should I Mount or Stand My TV?

Here's some great news- the days of having an entertainment center that took up the entire space because the TV size was similar to a stove and came with its furniture cabinet are long gone. Now, you can find space on a wall that is sturdy enough for TV wall installation with the invention of flat screens. It is still possible to have flexibility and storage space by placing it on a cabinet or console. This option also offers a stylish way to conceal all the cords and wires.

To help conceal gadgets like your BluRay player or Firesticks, as well as games, DVDs, and remote controls, contemporary credenzas contain baskets, drawers, and storage. Use a console underneath for a polished look, even if you think mounting the TV on the wall is the best choice.

Many TV stand options include a TV stand or console, armoire, wall center entertainment, and media chests.

Final Thoughts

Where's the best place to position your TV in your living room? Even though it could seem like a straightforward decision, there are certain things to keep in mind. Placement is everything when it comes to enjoying your favorite shows and movies, regardless of your TV type.

There are a few guidelines to follow when it comes to TV positioning. For example, ensure a plan for your position, height, and distance. Avoid uncomfortable positions that could strain your neck and eyes. Again, check that there's a power source close by.

Since we can't enter your house to determine the ideal position, we've walked you through some essential tips that can help. You can use these to accurately locate the optimal location in the room for your TV.