I’m sure we’d all like to pretend that we spend our evenings playing parlour games and reading, but the reality is that most of us sit down in front of the TV at some point in the evening. Rather than exclude a TV as a piece of a design, here’s how to incorporate it into your living room.

Disguise it as artwork

If you’re in the market for a new TV, one which is designed to disguise itself as artwork could be an option.

The Samsung Frame is a very slim wall mounted TV with a slightly matte screen, which can display whatever image you like. Meaning it looks (kind of) like a piece of art on the wall rather than a TV.

I’ve heard from clients though that the sound isn’t great on these, so you might want to invest in some external speakers, which kind of defeats the point unless you can hide them.

Mount it on the chimney breast

If your living room has a chimney breast, this is usually the focal point of the room and therefore your sofa will be pointing towards it. In this case you have two options - either put the TV in an alcove (more on that below), or mount it on the chimney breast.

If you go for the latter, make sure to style the alcoves well, whether that’s with simple decor or mounting some art to take some of the focus away from the TV.

Use alcove cabinets

The second option with a chimney breast, if it will fit, is to put the TV into an alcove cabinet. Built in alcove cabinets are a great way of using the space to the side of the chimney breast for display as well as storage - and they can double up as a TV stand.

If you style the shelves above well, the TV will blend into the area.

Use a dark backdrop

This clever trick makes the TV blend into the wall behind it, so your eye isn’t drawn straight to the black box. Paint, wood panelling, wallpaper or even tiles can be used.

Include it in a gallery wall

By surrounding a TV with other rectangular shapes, it will blend in to the wall and won’t be the first thing you notice when you enter the room. The TV becomes part of the gallery wall rather than a stand-out object.

This will be the most effective if you use prints and art which are of a similar scale to the TV and mix up the frames so that they don’t match.

Build a media wall

If you don’t have a chimney breast but you’re missing a focal point in the room, a media wall is a good way of adding a surround to your TV, storage, as well as an opportunity to style some shelves to distract from the TV itself.

Style it out

Finally, if you want to opt for a free standing TV stand, then my advice would be to get a really nice one which as a standalone piece of furniture you love. Like a mid-century sideboard which on it’s own looks great - and just so happens to have the TV on top of it.

Styling it with lamps, plants and other decor and playing with height and scale is the key to making this a stylish part of your room.

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