While I love watching movies, I will never love the look of a TV, but I love the idea of a bulky media cabinet even less...so what's a flick-obsessed aesthete to do? Well,Kyle's post on her TV curtain got me thinking about subtler ways to distract the eye from these mammoth eyesores. Here are some tips.
• 1., 6-8. On a bookshelf. In the first image, the rustic nature of the bookcase and collection of antique objects and pictures above it distract the eye from the large box in the middle, much more so than if the TV had been mounted to that same wall by itself. Bradley Bradley Thiergartner Interiors's bedroom (picture 8) at the Hampton Showhouse, as photographed by the lovely Heather Clawson of Habitually Chic, has a similar effect. However, a TV can also fit seamlessly into built-ins as well. In Anna Spiro's, of Absolutely Beautiful Things, gorgeous home books and collections in surrounding compartments take the focus away form the TV (picture 6). Going a step further, former Apartment Therapy: San Fransisco blogger, Elizabeth helped a client work a TV into a bookcase by painting the compartment a deep navy blue (picture 7).
• 2.-4. Incorporated into a salon style picture arrangement. The first time I saw this successfully employed was in Stefan's eclectic studio (picture 2), and it was so effective visually that now I employ it in nearly every home I help to decorate. Surrounded by pieces of art with similar shape or size frames, the TV blends into the background rather than dominating the wall.
•5. On an easel. Now this look is fairly common with stores such as Target and Restoration Hardware carrying easels made specifically for this purpose. Still, despite it's wide spread use, it is still full of charm, especially when used in an eclectic setting such as Newell Turner's Catskills living room above (picture 5).
• 9., 10.Surrounded by objects of a similar hue. I think Tim Neve's room (picture 9) is especially effective, as the white TV blends with the other white objects for a unified, casual display.
What other tips do you have for blending your TV into your decor?
To check out more tips on how to mask other household eyesores in plain sight, check out The Power of Distraction, Part I.
(Images: 1: House Beautiful, 2: Leah Moss, 3: Design*Sponge, 4: Kim of Desire to Inspire Via Apartment Therapy, 5: House Beautiful, 6: Absolutely Beautiful Things, 7: Apartment Therapy: San Fransisco, 8: Habitually Chic, 9: Real Living Magazine, 10: Gemma Ahern via casasugar)
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Comments (40)
No apostrophe needed. It's TV plural not TV possessive.
#1 is my favorite by far.
Oh I still love number four! I remember their house tour and I loved that as well.
On another note, I've come to realize that a good majority of AT readers must be English teachers. If not, they obviously missed their calling.
Being an artist, I love the look of the tv on the easel. The article says it's common, but I've never seen it before...especially not at Target.
Yes, I also really like #5 and have never seen it before! It must require some clever cord management though.
Some of these are really nice though looking at them made me realize that yes I do have a problem with asymetry and that I really should accept it and be ok with it because even when I can look and think that something is done well it still makes the hair go up on the back of my neck.
I love the easel and if I was unhappy with my tv situation it would be the first thing I'd do.
clickchick - it's been changed, thank you! Guiltily apostrophe happy!
Anything at all looks quite inconspicuous next to (or under) a Tretchikoff painting. :) Picture 4
I love the TV on an easel.
I agree with you Mechelle. I thought the grammar/punctuation police only patrolled certain message boards on the internet- but woah nelly I guess they are everywhere!
signed,
a comma abuser
Eek!
I feel compelled to join the grammar police on this one. I apologize in advance.
No comma is necessary in #5:
"Still, despite it's wide spread use, it is still full of charm..."
"Its" is possessive, not the contraction "it's," which is short for "it is".
Um, that's an apostrophe, not a comma.
...and the thing you mean is an apostrophe, not a comma :)
I don't get the need to "hide" the TV...in plain site or in a cabinet or whatever.
We live in the 21st Century and TVs are part of our lives (well, most of ours).
A TV is simply an appliance. How many people feel the need to hide their stove/oven, or their refrigerator, or even their lamps.
What is the obsession with "hiding" your TV? I just don't get it.
Nice ideas. I hate to be all smart alecy but #9 isn't a TV. It's a pre-aluminium casing iMac...
soonerscotty, perhaps it's just the fact that as TVs get larger and larger, they tend to dominate a room and detract from everything else. You're right, they're an appliance...that's exactly why many people, myself included, don't want them to take pride of place in my home.
This need to "hide the TV" confuses me as well. As long as you have one, it's going to be a bit of a focal point since the whole point is for everyone to be able to sit around and WATCH it. My TV is in a place where nobody has to break their neck to watch it and I decorate around it as I see fit, not with the intention of "hiding" it since it's nothing to be a ashamed of!
It see that a lot of these examples are for TVs other than black... how many of you specifically seek out non-black TVs? I don't typically like white TVs but this is making me reconsider.
Heh-- I currently have almost a shrine set up to my TV in the sense that I have a beautiful scarf hanging up behind in and plants flanking it. In a weird way, I feel it camouflages the TV by integrating it into the shapes surrounding it. It started out as a cheap and simple solution, but I'm toying with continuing it when I move... here's a pic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30058869@N04/4365095214/
I love the easel look - but I don't think it would work as well if the TV was off, rather than showing a lovely seascape. In fact I think the big problem with flatscreen TV concealment is the fact that the screen, when turned off, is so blank and black.
Maybe the best solution is just to stick a nice picture over the screen when it's off?
Leah, great post. We have built-in shelving surrounding our TV, which makes it seem less monumental in the room. I do love the TV on the easel, and I really like the picture supplied by yiyehtov!
As a practical matter, the TV needs to be connected to other gizmos: the cable box, surround sound thing, and the disc player. And the cords! It's a damn mess. The hide-in-plain- sight method doesn't account for this problem.
Once again, I present my solution:
http://picasaweb.google.com/elliottbanfield/FlatScreenTVCaseAnInvention#
I like these ideas - and I'm trying to figure out if I can work any of them into the apartment I'll move into in a couple of months.
On hiding the TV - I've noticed that many of my relatives with larger homes (or children who've moved out, leaving spare bedrooms) do not keep their TVs in the living room. For me, this separation helps to make it clear that the living room is for living, visiting, socializing and the "TV room" or den or whatever is for chilling out in front of the tube. Since I live in a small apartment that doesn't have a separate room that could be used in this way (and I refuse to have a television in my bedroom), I want to be able to hide the TV so that it's not a distraction or an element that dominates the room and says "this main purpose of this room is to watch TV."
We hide our TV among bookshelves as well. The focal point of the room is not---and never will be for us---the television. Instead, we wanted to have a TV available to us if we want to watch movies (we don't have cable), but the majority of the time spent in the room is to read, talk, write, play on laptops. That's, personally, why we hide our TV.
As an interior designer and 'not a TV person', the TV has always been the bane of my existence when creating a great room. Flat panels certainly have made it easier, but still they get in the way of what I am usually trying to do.
However, I am here today to publicly admit that this weekend I bought a very large, wickedly delicious HD TV for myself. I don't really no what came over me, but I have to say it's beautiful, very well designed and I have it completely networked to my laptops, internet and components and it is freakin' fantastic. (By the way I skipped the new DVD player because I can stream Netflix and BlockBuster via my internet connection to the TV.) It has yet to find a permanent location in the living room, but I'm loving some of these ideas and I think I have some great ones of my own. It might end up being a focal point...it might not, but TV is here to stay people and it's only getting better!
I have a 3 year old who would probably want to sit and watch TV all day if I didn't have a way to seal it off and say "goodbye" to it when his 30 minutes is up. Maybe it's just lazy parenting, but being able to shut the door makes my life so much easier. Anyway, we don't have a flatscreen so right now our TV sits in a very tall and deep armoire with knobs that are too high for him to reach. It was the perfect piece of furniture for our last house, but seems very weird now since our layout is more like #6 minus the attached dining room so the armoire is just sitting against a long blank wall. Maybe someday we'll try the bookcase method with doors (baby #2 on the way...). Thanks for the great ideas!
I like the idea of having the TV in a more or less dedicated room. Not all of us have that luxury, though. Ours is in the living room. I finally got a huge wardrobe-type cabinet to "hide" mine. It still looks like a shrine, though, since the doors are always open.
We are cinemaphiles and have five machines to watch DVD's and VHSs, foreign and domestic, and laser discs. Not to mention speakers and amplifiers and a little computer and mouse. Most of this stuff can go in the cabinet now. It does make for a neater appearance.
I'm told the flatscreens should be at eye level while seated. My offspring has a huge 48" flatscreen in a tiny apartment. It sits on an open shelf at eye level -- or rather, on a nice media stand from Crate and Barrel. They have their personal computers on desks on either side (also with largish screens). The wall behind is painted a grayish blue. I think they have coordinating screen savers. They have blue-ray, the works, and frankly love their TV, which they use basically to watch movies.
ebanfield - genius!
Ebanfield, I couldn't see the link when you posted it the other day. GREAT job!
I like the one on the easel, but I'd love to see the other side of it--I'm not convinced that it actually works.
I don't feel the need to hide our 40" flatscreen TV. I think it looks cool.
Media Easel at Target? more info please, I can't seem to find one.
The "Grammar Police" gripe about AT's mistakes the way "Foodies" gripe about meals cooked by others. If the prose is too salty, undercooked, burnt on one side, overly sweet, completely without spice, or too fatty/greasy, the text isn't as good as it could have been.
Also, language is a code. I think something and put it into words which I say aloud. You hear what I say (usually only some of it) and use your "decoder ring" (which consists of your knowledge of words and grammar) to figure out what I was thinking that I wanted you to understand. This process is about as efficient as running a heater in a house with no windows. We think we understand each other, but we're merely "getting warm", as children say when one makes a near-guess.
Since human communication is difficult at best, doesn't it make sense that we should all use the same decoder rings and know how to use them as best we can?
Here's an example:
Polly put the kettle on.
Polly, put the kettle on.
Polly? Put the kettle on.
Polly! Put the kettle on.
Polly, put the kettle on!
Polly! Put the kettle on!
Five simple words and four punctuation marks convey six very differnt meanings by small differences in placement. The resulting differences in meaning are only discernable because we all know the same rules for punctuation.
It's not that so many AT readers are English teacher. It's that we love the art and beauty of the artful use of high skill and evocative design in all things. We come to AT for the best in design. Grammar is design, too; the design of thought. Why shouldn't every aspect of design rise to the same high standards?
I have my TV sitting on a small bookcase with an antique, unlined quilt hanging behind. I don't have cable and instead have a flat panel antenna that can be hung on the wall - and luckily gets reception nicely even hidden behind the quilt! The business of the quilt distracts from the TV and helps hide the cords, as does having the TV sit on an object with a solid back.
Oh! *Love* the TV on the easel, how creative!
way to take the air out of a post!
Apart from the toaster, the TV is the only appliance that is looked at while in use. Unlike the toaster, the TV has a completely different look when off. Kind of dark and blank, large and always in view.
TV is the perfect candidate for these attractive adaptations.
My 2006 32" Sony Bravia has a nice, pale silver-gray picture-frame style front with a translucent green accent strip across the lower edge. It reduces the impact of the black-hole when the set is off.
Yes, the larger TVs can dominate the room if you are not careful.
I have a dark blue accent wall behind my TV. All appliances (flatscreen TV, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, amplifier/tuner, media PC and loudspeakers) are in plain sight. Because they are all black, they don't stand out against the wall. It's a calming sight for me, while the methods pictured above (bookshelves and picture arrangements) would be too chaotic for me.
Does anyone know where I could find an iron bookcase similar to the one in the first photo?
anderlank - I've been trying to track down that beautiful bookcase too. Similar styles:
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=996&f=31249
http://www.vivaterra.com/pls/enetrixp/!stmenu_template.main?complex_id_in=482007.1062178.919994.2006284.page
http://www.potterybarn.com/products/benchwright-bookcase/?pkey=cbookcases-shelves
the spacing is quite different though than the one pictured above. Anyone else?
@Leahdc
The pieces from pottery barn and vivaterra look as though they would allow you to easily remove one of the shelves to make room for the TV.
This one is more rustic but could be interesting: http://www.carolinarustica.com/charleston-forge-retreat-bookcase/p/CF6265/
Buy one of these:
http://www.activateddesigns.com/
Problem solved.
Next challenge...coming up with the thousands of dollars to implement the aforementioned solution.