TV Above Fireplace

How To Hide a TV That’s Over Your Fireplace

In Furniture by Giovanni ValleLeave a Comment

Mounting your TV above the fireplace can be a great way to add beauty, ambiance, and warmth to your home. However, a giant black screen on the wall can be a real eyesore to your living room, especially when you want your fireplace to be the focal point.

To hide a TV that’s over your fireplace, you can either place it in a cabinet, behind barn doors, or hang a pull-down picture in front of it. You can also hide it with a mirror, antique screen, or sliding artwork. Other ways to hide your TV include placing it in a shutter or painting the wall black.

In the rest of this article, I’ll go into more details about each method of hiding your TV above the fireplace. I’ll also show you how to disguise your TV wires over a fireplace without cutting the walls.

Hide Your TV Behind a Cabinet

One of the best ways to ensure that your TV doesn’t become the focal point in your living room is to hide it in a cabinet. A typical cabinet has a door that you can close when the TV is not in use and folded back when you want to watch your favorite show. 

You can build one yourself or purchase a ready-made flat-screen TV cabinet. If you prefer to DIY it, you can easily create a small box with doors. You can also build a glass cabinet to add more aesthetics to your space. 

If you’re going this route, ensure the cabinet is large enough to accommodate your TV and its cables. From a design perspective, it’s a good idea to paint your cabinet the same color as your walls and fireplace to allow it to blend in seamlessly.

Hang a Pull-Down Picture in Front of It

This option is less expensive compared to using cabinets. It involves printing an art cover or photograph on a canvas and hanging it on the wall to cover up the TV. This method is suitable if you can go through the trouble of pulling down the picture when it’s not in use and rolling it up when you need to use it.

Ensure the dimensions of the pull-down picture are just a little bigger than those of the TV. You can use any of your favorite photographs or find one from any stock photo website. The picture should also be of high quality, so it doesn’t warp or become grainy after printing. 

If you wish, you can build a frame around the picture to conceal your TV’s edges and the roller’s strings further. One of the most significant advantages of a pull-down picture is that it doesn’t take up a lot of space or take away the spotlight from your fireplace.

Fit a Sliding Panel or Artwork in Front of It

Like hanging a picture in front of your TV to conceal it, you can fit a sliding piece of art or panel in front of it. This option works even better for a large TV screen. It involves using two panels or artwork frames that slide left and right to reveal or conceal the screen when in use and when not in use.

If you’re using this method, you’ll need to mount your TV on a wall bracket and build shallow cabinetry around it. TV brackets come in different styles and sizes. The most basic design is a static arm. However, you can purchase an articulated bracket that tilts your screen forward a little and allows for a better viewing experience.

Not only does a sliding artwork help to conceal your TV, but it also enhances the beauty of your living room and makes your fireplace the focal point.

Hang a Mirror in Front of Your TV

A mirror is a great way to hide a TV that’s above a fireplace. Compared to the two previous methods, it is a more simple, elegant, and convenient solution and adds a beautiful reflection to your room. It only involves installing a mirror in front of your TV, and no unique mechanism is required.

TV mirrors are available in different sizes, and you can choose one to fit your screen. When you want to watch TV, you simply turn it on, and the mirror magically disappears. It only becomes visible again when you turn your TV off. 

If you don’t want to go through the trouble of installing a mirror in front of your TV, you can purchase a custom mirrored LED TV instead. Because of the high reflectivity of mirrored TVs, they are best used in low-light conditions. You need a high amount of light in the room for optimal mirror reflection.

Hide It Behind Barn Doors

Barn doors are a great way to add a rustic feel to your living room. Plus, they are not going out of style soon. They do a great job of concealing a TV screen and are a great alternative to sliding panels or artwork.

Most barn door designs consist of wooden doors and metal tracks, but you can also choose one with castle doors, old church doors, garage doors, and French doors, depending on your taste.

While most designs will work with any style of home, it’s always a great idea to install barn doors that fit the style of your home décor or the décor around your fireplace. Because barn doors can be heavy, you may need a professional’s assistance to install them above your fireplace.

Paint the Walls Black

This option is a great way to disguise your TV rather than completely hide it. It is probably the easiest and most straightforward solution to make your TV screen as inconspicuous as possible. The dark color of the TV will blend into the surrounding background and deflect attention away from it. 

An even better option is to use a flush mount that prevents the TV from protruding too much on the black wall. You can also cut a small section on the wall to your TV’s size and tuck it inside. The black color will allow no contrast between the wall and screen, causing it to almost disappear into the wall.

Mount Your TV in a Rotating or Flip-Around Frame

TV mounts are usually static, presumptuously, for the TV’s safety. However, a fixed TV mount doesn’t serve the purpose of hiding the TV to make the fireplace apparent. For this purpose, employ the use of a rotating or flip-around frame as your TV mount.

Rotating TV mount frames are designed such that they can be swiveled around, both horizontally and vertically. They consist of a series of links to hold the weight of the TV in place. 

This method affords you more space as you wish and improves your viewing experience. It helps you get the TV out of the way – without removing it from its mount – and reveals the awesomeness of your fireplace.

Rotating TV mounts are usually made of durable materials capable of handling weights of up to (and more than) 100 pounds or 45.36 kilograms. Therefore, it is safe to say they are generally safe and sturdy – if you’re concerned about the safety of your TV. You can also decorate the frame with a painting or photograph if you don’t want to leave it empty.

Shutter It

A wooden shutter can help to conceal your TV without protruding it too far. They offer a chic urban appeal and a kind of mental exercise of the imagination. Guests are left to guess what could be behind the shutters continually. It would be strange to have windows directly above the fireplace, won’t it?

There are different styles and types of shutters to choose from, depending on your home décor or preferred style. You can choose the full-length shutters – that leave the brain working on what could lay behind it to the tier-on-tier shutters that take your guests back to the 16th-century bar door styles. 

You could have the lower half of the shutter housing the TV while the upper half exposes a painting that fits the shutter style.

Another style is the special shape shutters. This type of shutter allows the concealment to be made according to your specification. It can have an arched top or an unusual shape –everything to your taste.

Hide It Behind an Antique Screen

One of the best ways to hide anything is to have a screen that separates a part of the room. In this case, we only want to hide the TV. Therefore, we need a screen that conveniently rests above the fireplace and makes the TV unnoticeable.

Screens are either made to entirely hide a part of a section or the whole section. This method means the antique screens we need, in our case, have to hide the top sector and leave the lower part visible. So, the screen might employ a mesh-like pattern at the top and leave the lower part bare.

Some antique screens might even portray a familiar story told by the fireplace. An antique screen offers more than hiding the TV. It also provides an ancient feel to the room’s aesthetics.   

Disguise It With Art

If you’re looking to keep something away from prying eyes, hide it behind an art, such as a painting, sculpture, or still-life.

To hide your TV and pronounce your fireplace’s presence, you can have paintings around your TV so that it is not easy to notice as a standalone object but as part of the picture. For instance, a black-framed TV could serve as the part of the canvas where the soot from the fireplace place comes to rest. Around it, paintings that mimic embers of fire will do. You might need a professional hand for this, though.

As part of a still-life drawing, your TV is still; add other still-life but realistic drawings beside it. The other pictures should draw your attention away from the TV and lead you to the fireplace.

How To Disguise TV Wires Over a Fireplace Without Cutting the Walls

When you have successfully hidden the central part of your TV – the screen – the wires can still give you away. How possible is it to hide the cables without cutting the walls? Remove them and store them away? 

Why not disguise it?

Yes, you can disguise your TV cables and wires as much as you can hide your TV screen. It seems almost impossible, and it will likely require that you cut slits in your wall to hide them. No, we will try as much as possible to help you avoid that.

Use Raceways

Raceways are quite common in homes and are popularly used to organize wires. It will serve the same purpose for us but with a twist. Raceways are available in bright colors, white mostly, and that will not fit right with our aim.

If you have successfully hidden your dark-framed TV and have a white raceway beneath it, it can be suspicious. To eliminate that suspicion, you will have to paint the raceway black or the closest color to black.

You can also paint the raceways the same color as your fireplace. This color will not only hide the wires but also add a touch of design to your fireplace.

After painting them, all you have to do is get the wires into them and attach them to the wall. You don’t need to puncture the wall with a screw. Raceways have adhesive strips on their rears.

There are different types of raceways, choose the right one as it suits your TV position, and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to pull off.

Use More Art

It can be frustrating if you’ve done everything right, but it seems the TV cables won’t cooperate. You may not have to hide them if you add some more art where they are positioned. Use art that complements the wires and makes them look like part of the art.

You may use the wires as part of the art that depicts smoke rising from the top of the fireplace and collecting on the screen (only most people might not notice it is a TV screen).

Bright colored paintings like slender stems bearing small leaves will also conceal the cables effectively. Adding art will not only disguise the cables and wires, but it will also add more flair and creativity to your fireplace.

Arrange Statues and Sculptures

Arrange artwork like statues of warriors or cultures on the fireplace. It will do well if the figures are antiquated. They will add a classical touch of heritage to your fireplace setting and help disguise the cables well.

If you have an antique screen covering your TV, but the cable is exposed over the fireplace, arrange statues that fit the screen design to give it more aesthetics simultaneously and hide the cable. For instance, if the screen has a Japanese feel, you can use samurais statues in a fighting style sequence.

Sculptures such as pots and busts may work over the fireplace. The TV cables will disappear behind them, and with the TV hidden, all that is left to see is the fireplace and the artwork on them.

Try Fabrics

This method may sound dangerous because of its proximity to the fireplace and the possibility of contacting fire. However, fabrics work well when disguising TV cables. 

The key is to use that sense of danger as an art. Use fabric with lacework on them as covers for the TV wires and cables. Choose materials that seem to be a part of the disguise you have given to your TV. The important thing is that it blends well with your TV disguise and the color of your fireplace.

Leave Them in Plain Sight

The best place to hide anything from a man is right under his nose. Leave the TV cables and wire where you can easily see them. 

Arrange them to form a pattern on the wall and lead attention away from the TV.

You can make them into a circular maze that leads to the fireplace. You may also add some creativity by painting the cables and wires in different colors.

Remember that your TV is hidden and builds a sense of intense imagination and curiosity to know where those colored strings came from and what is holding them there. This arrangement allows you to disguise the wires, drive attention from the TV and towards the fireplace.

Final Thoughts

Your fireplace should be the focal point in your room, and your TV shouldn’t get in the way of it. Fortunately, there are several ways to hide your TV and improve the aesthetics of your living room. 

Here’s a quick review of the methods we considered in the article:

  • Hide your TV behind cabinets
  • Hang a pull-down picture in front of it
  • Fit a mirror or sliding panel or artwork in front of it
  • Hide it behind barn doors
  • Paint the walls black
  • Mount it in a rotating or flip-around frame
  • Shutter it or hide it behind an antique screen

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