Flat Screen Over the Fireplace
My wife thinks I am a cheeseball if I hang a flat screen over the fireplace in our parlour room. It is perfectly centered though, and would improve my television-watching experience, thereby allowing me to get drunk in peace every night and ignore my family. Is she right?
My wife thinks I am a cheeseball if I hang a flat screen over the fireplace in our parlour room. It is perfectly centered though, and would improve my television-watching experience, thereby allowing me to get drunk in peace every night and ignore my family. Is she right?
We did it and are happy–but we only did it because we have the luxury of a separate, dedicated tv room. We would never have done it in the main living room.
have to admit, it’s not the worst idea in the world if done right. do you have to put it in your parlour room? i couldn’t fathom ruining our parlour room with a flat screen tv on the wall. but there are other rooms in the house that could be less formal, tv-watching rooms where i could see the tv on the wall.
i also saw something cool once in a home magazine where they put a plazma tv on a steel artists easel with wheels. it was modern and effective. i liked it a lot.
don’t fear: those perfect people in park slope blew it when they said the only tv in the house was in that room. for really, 100% perfect people there is no tv at all. For 80% perfect people, you don’t need to mention the “only one” tv thing, it goes without saying. So, they are 60% perfect people, max.
that is my fear. my eclectic home filled with my wife, chunky child, and pieces of artwork from asia will be masked by the giant tacky flatscreen right over the fireplace – the dead center of our home life. it says something about me that i don’t want to say.
I think it can look pretty tacky frankly. It makes the focus of your parlour a big tv screen. It’s really a style decision. Fine if you are going for the bachelor pad look, but probably nicer to be able to hide it discreetly in a cabinet in my opinion.
I saw a “This Old House” episode where they did this but had it hidden in built in cabinetry above a fireplace. it was not a brownstone though, so the cabinetry did not look out of place.
I did the TV over the fireplace thing and it works well. The TV kind of disapears when it is not on (most of the time). There are TVs (panasonic) that now come with frames, so they kind of look like a mirror when it is off. The issue of how high you install it is important, but you can get a tilting wall mount.
I say go for it.
after I posted this, I saw the article in the times about the perfect people with the perfect townhouse in the NYTimes. it made me feel guilty for even considering the flat-screen-over-the-fireplace idea. and yet…i am tortured by the possibilities of the perfect tv experience
yes, she is right. please, people!
Nice idea. But won’t looking up at the screen for hours on end be uncomfortable? Also, some screens need to be viewed straight on, otherwise the picture looks like junk. I know the manufacturers have improved on this, but still — what a waste to have that nice TV up there and not be able to see the picture. And then there is the whole family time thing…