I’ve always been very anti-hanging your TV over the fireplace. It’s a big decorating no-no. And it’s definitely not the best of viewing angles. But the house that we recently moved to has a fairly small family room where the four five (dog included) of us are smooshed together on a small sofa when we watch TV. Meanwhile, our living room, which is quite large and has a pretty wood-burning fireplace, sits unused 98% of the time.
So I’m thinking…wouldn’t it make the most sense to turn our hardly-used living room into our family room? But there’s a problem. Based on the layout of the living room, the most logical place to put the TV would be over the fireplace. Every time I’ve seen a TV mounted over a fireplace I’ve kinda hated it. But then I came across this beautiful fireplace by Simply Inspired Design:
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| {The Yellow Cape Cod} |
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| {Houzz – Michael Cadden, Promaster Design+Build} |
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| {Lynn Morgan Design via House of Turquoise} |
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| {Ken Gemes Interiors} |
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| {Style at Home} |
What do most of these images have in common? Two things. And they are the two things that I think are key to making the whole TV over the fireplace thing work:
Of course there’s always the option of creatively hiding the TV (see {this previous post} for some clever ways to disguise TVs). My favorite hidden TV solution is placing it behind sliding or hinged doors:
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| {Crisp Architects} |
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| {Country Living} |
So what do you guys think about hanging your TV over the fireplace – yea or nay?
We are television addicts. I designed mirrored doors that fold open to see the tv and close to look like a large mirror when not in use. However, funny enough, we never got around to putting in a tv inside. We watch most of our television in the kitchen. See, total addicts.
I love my TV too Linda. It’s kind of a funny situation in this case because I’m the one arguing for putting the TV over the fireplace since we’d all have space to spread out and get comfy in that room whereas my husband doesn’t want to do it because he thinks it would look bad. Never in a million would I have thought that I’d be the one arguing for function over looks and my husband would be the one concerned about the appearance of the space. Twilight zone??
Im not sure. I like the TV to be more eye level. With it mounted over the fireplace, you kinda have to look up all the time. I like the way it looks, but not how my neck and eyes would feel after a couple hours of watching TV.
I totally agree – that’s one of my biggest concerns about doing this. I hoping that the fact that I usually lie down to watch TV might make this angle of TV watching a little less awkward…
I have my tv over my fireplace and its not too bad. I have a small living/tv room with awkward angles and with my big sectional on the one side with the chaise lounge end, I pretty much just lay back, relax, and watching TV is pretty comfortable. I am also redoing my fireplace right now and that first picture looks amazing. My room has tall ceilings, a light modern gray walls with white trim. I would like to build out my mantle to be more complete like the ones in the pictures but I still need to decide whether I like light or dark tile to go against that very light gray,
Thanks so much for your input Mark! Sounds like a beautiful room!
We have our living room television over the fireplace. The viewing angle has never been a problem for me. The only drawback, which is not really that big a deal, is that I feel like I can’t do a lot of decorating on my mantle because it might obstruct the view of the tv.
You’re right – it would be kind of a bummer not to be able to do much mantel decorating. Especially since our last house didn’t have one and I was looking forward to having one to decorate in this house.
A house is not a home until it fits your needs and lifestyle … I vote for at least trying out the living room as the “gathering spot”. If you do decide to mount the TV above the mantle the moulding and lighting scones you shared examples of would be great ways to integrate the TV. The other thing that struck me about the pics is the color black was well distributed around the room helping the TV not feel like the classic “big dark hole” but definitely more of a design choice / element. And I totally agree about a possible uncomfortable viewing angle with the TV so high, but articulated TV mounts that enable you to tilt the TV screen downward and / or swing the TV out from the wall to improve a sight line really handle those issues well. Can you believe (way) in the past we actually sat a TV in the fireplace box cause we didn’t have any other place for it!!! I just have to laugh at that. zeesh 🙂 Robin
I didn’t pick up on how using black around the room might help but I think you’re totally right now that I look back at the pictures. Fortunately, our living room has a lot of black and grey going on so that’s probably a good thing! So funny that long ago you had your TV in the fireplace box – when you’re young and penniless you gotta do what you gotta do!!
Kris, we have the same issue. There really is no good place for our tv in our family room except over the fireplace. We haven’t mounted ours up there yet because we want to change the look of our fireplace surround, but we are planning on doing so, with a mounting bracket that can be angled down so the tv is easier to view. We have a great mounting bracket in our basement that can be moved side to side or down…..so that might be the solution for you with the viewing issue.
Thanks for your input Lisa. I need to look into options for mounting brackets – sounds like that could be key!
How to you like to sit when you watch tv? If you like to sit upright on the couch then you might find the tv to be too high above the fireplace. But if you are like my family, and you all watch tv sprawled/laying on the couch with your heads propped on pillows or resting on the armrest then you will find the viewing angle to be perfectly comfortable. In our house the fireplace is not in the living room but in the downstairs den/mancave. Mounting a tv over the fireplace was perfect for watching games. Now I admit that I would have been happier with a more appropriately scaled set that I could have closed behind doors or built in with some moldings, like your pictures. But it’s the mancave and the men in the family (hubby and 2 teen boys) believe that bigger is always better when it comes to their toys. Gotta admit that monstrous tv is kind of nice for movie nights.
I’m a lounger just like you! Thanks for sharing your experience – it’s really helpful!
Time to stop hiding the TV. The pretense that we don’t watch TV is ridiculous. I am a movie junkie, and watching movies on TV is a regular part of family time. I’ve had a flatscreen TV mounted over the fireplace for nearly 6 years now, and I love it. My family room is about 15×16, so it’s really a very comfortable height. If I had a smaller room, I suppose I might want it lower, but in its current configuration, I have never found myself tilting my head or straining to watch it, either when sitting up or laying down.
Now all I have to do is figure out how to convert the built in TV cabinet (with slide-in doors and a pull-out base) into a stylish bar.
It sounds like you’ve got an awesome TV viewing arrangement for your space! Good luck converting the old TV cabinet – such a great idea!
The question I have about mounting the TV above the fireplace is what do you do with all the cords? And the cable box, and the Blu-ray player etc.
What do you do with the cable box and DVD player? How do you hide it?
Ideally you would run a single HDMI cable through the wall along with a coax cable and an outlet for power. Doing it this way would allow you to plug your HDMI cable into some sort of switching receiver/surround.