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December 2010 Moms
tiffanyp
member
NTR: Help me decorate my living room - where does the TV go?
tiffanyp
member
We are in the process of buying a house in the suburbs (yay!) and I'm trying to figure out what to do with our new living room. Since this house was built in 1925 long before television, it has a formal living room with a fireplace as the centerpiece. Should we put the TV above the fireplace? The current owners put their TV in the family room and kept the living room as a formal (probably unused) room, but I want to use the family room as a play room and the living room as the "adult" space. Any suggestions? Here's a few pictures of the room:
I should note that these are the marketing images for the house. This is not our furniture, so furniture can be added or arranged in any way that makes sense. We want a TV in there somewhere though, and we want it to be easy to watch, since we will be watching TV in there every day.
I'm also open to any decorating suggestions for making the room a bit more modern. We are open to re-doing the mantle to give us more space above the fireplace if that'll help (our TV is pretty big). I'm also not a huge fan of the yellow walls, so if anyone has any color palate suggestions I'd like to hear those too. I like modern looks, but figuring out how to achieve that is not my forte,
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Re: NTR: Help me decorate my living room - where does the TV go?
What a stunningly gorgeous home! Congrats!
I would put the television above the fireplace, if I were you. However, I stink at decorating and interior design, so I might not be the best one to ask! But, I think it would keep it out of the reach of any kiddos, and open the room and empty walls up for however you want to decorate it and arrange furniture.
I honestly do not like the way televisions look over fireplaces. I would put the television on that wall that has the square painting. The couch (or your couch, once you move it in) would stay where it is, and you can put a loveseat or chairs across from the fireplace, and it will still have a view of the television. A few low ottomans can complete a conversation area around the fireplace without blocking the view of the television.
Does that work? It's a little hard to tell angles from the pictures, so I am unsure if the tv would be too off center, or you would have to put it in front of windows?
ETA: Also, this is one of my favorite decorating blogs and they have a more modern style than I have. You may really like what they do: younghouselove.com. Maybe you can look around for some color palette ideas? They do a lot of gray, which looks really nice in their house.
Thank you
I think we are leaning towards putting the TV over the fireplace since that's the "center" of the room, but the TV is so big that it might not look good because it would fill the entire space. It would be nice to put all the components somewhere else and have all the wires hidden through the walls (although we'd definitely need to hire someone for that since I have no idea how to do it).
Yes, it's a flat screen. That's a good point about it being out of reach. I've already had to clean crayon off the screen. Do you find it annoying at all to have to look up at the TV?
The only problem with that wall is that it's right at the entrance to the living room:
It's kind of messy to have the TV and all the components at the entrance. You'd be able to see it from the hallway then. I'd put it on the opposite wall, but we'd have to put it in front of a window. I'm not against getting curtains to block the sun, but I'm worried that it wouldn't look good in front of a window.
Thanks for the link to the blog. I'll check it out!
Thanks! I never thought I'd be so excited to move to the suburbs.
The wall where the piano is would be a good choice since there are no windows, but MH doesn't want to sit perpendicular to the TV. Ugh! I'm really tempted to just remove or block the double window on the adjacent wall. I bet the folks at HGTV would come up with something brilliant.
Unfortunately I'll be in Chicago for a family reunion at the end of September, right when Turtle should be making his entrance
I'm not travelling for any the holidays this year because I'll be too close to my due date.
Maybe next year our paths will cross
If we got an L-shaped couch, then wouldn't part of it be blocking the fireplace? Or am I not picturing it correctly?
Congrats on the house! Agree that I would put the TV on the wall where the piano is currently. We had a challenging time figuring out our TV in our new house - fireplace at one end so you don't want to block that, huge blank wall at other end and wall of windows across from an open 'hallway' area to our bedroom. So really your only choices were TV on wall and couches/chairs perpendicular or over the fireplace which would have ended up being too high. We are buying an media cabinet for the wall and we'll just have to sit leaning against the arm of the couch if we want to lay out and watch TV on the couch.
You could do a whole wall of fieldstone for the fireplace (floor to ceiling), that might look cool and then do maybe a stone/concrete mantle?
Have you ever looked at houzz.com? I'm super addicted. You can save pictures to different 'idea books' that you can go back and reference later. They have thousands upon thousands of photos and ideas to search through.
GL!
Hmm... maybe I'll work on convincing him. Perhaps if we have a couch on one side and a couple really cozy chairs that swivel, then he would agree, since he could point his chair directly at the TV.
Ooh, that website looks very addictive. Regarding your fireplace suggestion, are you suggesting to do floor to ceiling stone and then hang the TV up there too, such as this setup?:
https://www.houzz.com/photos/698338/Stone-Fireplace-Renovation-modern-living-room-dc-metro
Because I have to admit, that is pretty freaking cool! That would definitely add a modern touch to an old ass house!
I was still thinking you should put the TV on the piano wall but based on the pics it would look pretty cool on a stone wall like that. Definitely what I was envisioning for the fireplace! Cool, huh?
It's very cool. However, I don't think it's going to work in my "traditional" style house because I'd have to modernize the whole room and rip out all the crown molding. Then the living room wouldn't match the style of the rest of the house, which would probably hurt my resale value. I'm thinking of doing something like this instead:
https://www.houzz.com/photos/298646/Project-in-Tiburon-traditional-family-room-
Definitely not as cool as the modern one, but it's a much smaller project and it would fit the style of the rest of the house. I like how the darker paint makes the TV stand out less.
Not at all anymore. It was weird the first month or so, but I don't even realize (but partly because I'm all sprawled out on our couch nowadays so maybe that's why. Its also been great that it is high since A is into throwing balls and objects now, the TV is out of his reach, but I do fear for our sliding glass back door.
As for the sectionals, some of them have a choice what part of the L is on so you can have it on the other side from the fireplace too and you're probably right if you can get your H a swivel comfy chair he may be sold. His own little "man throne".
Your new living room looks nice! I agree that perpendicular seating might not be the comfiest, but I think the TV would make most sense on the wall with the piano, since it's a lot of unused wall space. Maybe you could get a chaise for your DH so he'll be pointed in that direction when he watches TV. Also, this way, you won't be able to see the TV, DVD player, etc. from the hallway, which is one of the things you said you preferred.
We chose not to put our flat screen TV above the fireplace in our family room. I've kind of had second thoughts about it because it seems like most people put their TVs over their fireplaces. DH was pretty adamant about not putting the TV there, so I went with it. We got a mirror that I love, which we are going to put over our fireplace, to make it more of a decorative wall.
Like jilly, I love the YHL blog. I also like Censtational Girl, which is where we stole the idea of the mirror over the fireplace.
Ooh, that's a really cool mirror! I will definitely get something like that if we don't put the TV there.
I didn't read all the comments but if you hang it above your fireplace where will all the wires and boxes (game system, satellite/cable, DVD player, whatever you have) go? DH was sold on mounting our tv above our fireplace until he realized how tacky it would look with our setup. So now I get to use my mantle for family portraits and decor.
I would suggest the piano wall. We've had our furniture perpendicular before and it was NBD You could always get a recliner or something for guests that don't want to sit that way.
For color schemes, ILs just repainted their foyer a sage green color (I'm not sure the exact name) but I'm in love with it. I can't wait until our house is built so I can use it in a room lol
You put all the components in a closet in a different room and you use RF technology to communicate with your TV. It's actually really nice when you get it set up. There are no wires showing, and all your components as well as the TV are out of reach of children. We've never done it before because we've always rented and it's not worth going to the trouble of wall mounting a TV and setting everything up for a temporary location, but since this is finally a more permanent move it's probably worth the trouble.