TV over Fireplace

[Chicago]

Does anyone have their tv above their fireplace? Some are telling me that is way too high for comfort. It is really the only place for me to put a tv because there are only 3 walls -one wall is all windows and one wall is the fireplace. Otherwise, I have to place my couch in front of the windows.

Also, my fireplace is raised off the ground. Has anyone ever lowered their fireplace, so it is flat on the ground? I'm wondering about how much that is.

 

[diznygirl]

I've watched TVs that are hung over the fireplace. Yes, they were too high. I had to look up from the couch the entire time, and it gets old pretty quick. Luckily, not my house.

What is on the third wall? Is that where you expect the couch to go? Can you float the couch in the room? I have something similar - I put the the couch in the middle of the room facing the windows. The TV is to one side, fireplace to the other.

 

[Chicago]

I've watched TVs that are hung over the fireplace. Yes, they were too high. I had to look up from the couch the entire time, and it gets old pretty quick. Luckily, not my house.

What is on the third wall? Is that where you expect the couch to go? Can you float the couch in the room? I have something similar - I put the the couch in the middle of the room facing the windows. The TV is to one side, fireplace to the other.

The third wall is empty. There is no room on either side of the fireplce or windows to hang a large tv. What would Vern do? This is driving me crazy. The tv would be a 55 inch LCD if that helps.

 

[daughtersrus]

Do you use your fireplace? If you do, I wouldn't suggest hanging it there. Over time, you will see a film build up on the screen.

My experience is that it's also a bit uncomfortable because of the height.

 

[Explodo]

WE have you TV over the fireplace. We actualy love it there. Yes, you do look up...but it's quite comfortable. The one issue you need to address is the temperature of your TV when the fireplace is operating. If your TV gets hot, its operating life will be cut in half(or even by 75%). The highest temp you can let it get is 90 degrees.

 

[MineMail]

When we bought our house, DH was itching to put a flat-screen TV over the fireplace. Until we went to a neighbor's house who had done just that. (Our houses mirror each other - same layout and dimensions, just flipped.)

DH didn't like the TV up there - it was too high and uncomfortable to watch. Their couches are big and overstuffed, so it wasn't too bad to slouch and watch, but we have a sitting couch with a low back. We'd have to get new furniture - not that I wouldn't mind that! (Our furniture was DH's late parents' set, circa 1050, reupholstered twice and looking a lot worse for wear since we acquired the pieces.)

The neighbor remarked that they rarely used the fireplace because of the wood smoke. Didn't know about the temperature restriction. We use our fireplace often, but it's been converted to natural gas and we installed the doors so it might not be as much of an issue.

Instead, we have a corner cabinet for our old-school tv set, next to a window. It doesn't take up a lot of space. We don't have home theatre speakers though - everything fits in or on the cabinet. We rarely watch TV during the day, but when we do, we just close the blinds.

 

[Silent1CB]

It might depend how far the seating is from the TV wall. My DSIL's seating is very close. Maybe 5 ft. Small narrow room. The TV sits on top of one of those fake fireplaces that burn canned alcohol gel. Its way too close & too high in that situation.

Reclining seating may help.

What about the heat from fireplace? Will it shorten the lifespan of the TV?

 

[Chicago]

I didn't think about the fp effecting the tv - yikes. We will have gas logs and glass doors put in for sure then. The couch will be 22-25 feet from the tv, the tv will be 55 inches LG LED wireless, and the mantle is 5 ft high.

More advice please! Also, has anyone lowered their fireplace? Anyone in construction have even a ball park idea of how much that would be. It is a brick fireplace (6 years old).

 

[MineMail]

Try putting a picture (just tape it up) over the fireplace to see what it looks like to sit on the couch and watch TV.

Never lowered a fireplace, sorry. I don't like the "hole in the wall" fireplace look so I can't blame you for wanting a more traditional look. I'd have to think the demolition would be a messy prospect though. Converting to gas might be a bit expensive unless you already have gas appliances or a gas feed in the house.

 

[Earstou]

When we moved in, the house we live in now had a niche over the fireplace for the tv. It's all a beautiful built-in unit, so would look funny without the tv there, so that's where it is.
We'd planned on buying a new sofa anyway, so after sitting watching tv in the old sofa, we knew we needed to buy a reclining sofa for comfort. Now we don't even think about it being high up!
We have a gas fireplace we rarely use due to my asthma. We did use it alot a couple of winters ago when we were without power for 5 days!

 

[disneystacy]

I think a lovely part of a room is the fireplace. IMO a TV looks hideous above a mantle. We have our TV on the empty wall in a unit made for a lcd TV.
The firplace is the focal point of our room, not a TV.

 

[EMom]

We only have TWO walls and we hate having the TV on the non-fireplace one. The flow of the room is off. We want to move it above the fireplace, which we NEVER use, but we know it will be too high. So we plan to demolish the mantle and rebuild it much lower so the TV will be at a comfortable height.

 

[FireDancer]

There are a couple of things to consider when you place a TV above a fireplace. First, since it is gas and not wood burning I don't think the heat issue will be too bad. This is especially true if the mantle sticks out a bit.

As far as the height thing goes, that is purely objective. It may be too high for you or it may not, only you can really judge that. A couple of things to think about though. First, angle the television so that the eye line from the couch or the position you will most likely watch the television in is as close to 90 degrees as possible. This way when you stand or sit on the floor the angle will not be as drastic as if the television was already viewed at an obtuse angle while sitting.

Second, I would consider a television with a wide vertical viewing angle. Since the viewing angle will be exaggerated by already bing angled and on the wall you don't want one that will start to ghost every time you stand up.

My suggestion, along with placing a picture up there, would be to go to a couple of local stores and see if any televisions are at about the same hight as yours will be. Most places have some sort of seating you can place in front of that television and make sure your neck doesn't go numb after 10 minutes.

One last thing to consider is that over time the viewing height will become normal to you. Even if it seems strange at first there is a good chance that over a short period of time you will get used to the television being at that hight.

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

We have a remote control bracket so I can point the tv "down" at us when we're sitting in the family room, and I can tell it to rotate sideways so I can see it from the kitchen, it looks like this:

It makes a big difference when the tv is pointed "at" you when it's 5 feet up as opposed to flat against the wall, for some reason.

We don't use our fireplace (gas logs), so the concern about overheating the tv isn't there (plasmas run pretty hot anyway, fwiw).

I need to add that DH says he doesn't want to use the fireplace because the wires run down the same hollow space in the wall that the fireplace flue uses and he thinks that it could potentially get hot enough back there (especially if the wires are near the flue pipe) to damage the wires. And it was a BEAR snaking all those wires down through the wall and out into the builtins, it's not something I want to repeat again...

 

[RUDisney]

May I ask why you do not want your sofa in front of the window? We have one of our sofas in front of a picture window that is on the side of our house. It looks nice there and doesn't cause any concern, although I have to pull the couch out sometimes because the kids plop onto it and push it into the curtains.

I like to display large family photos on the mantle during the year and my nutcracker collection from Thanksgiving into January.

I'll give you a piece of advice my friend who is an interior designer gave to me. "Give up the centrifical force in your rooms." She said that too many people think that everything has to be up against a wall. Use angles to arrange your furniture. As it is, our 61" TV is at an angle into the room and our big chair and ottoman are at an angle at the other side of the room. Only our 2 sofas have centrifical force. Even our area rugs are angled in the room.

 

[HM]

We have our couch in front of the windows. Our TV is on the third, empty wall. The fireplace is to the left of the couch on the other wall. Our open "wall" is the entry into the room and is partially "blocked" by the love seat at right angles to the couch. There are several other homes in our nieghborhood with the same wall set-up and they almost all did it that way.

Try putting your couch in front of the windows...you'll probably find you like having the light from the windows for reading.

 

[Chicago]

Wow - thanks for all the great advice.
Kickapoo - we are getting a wireless tv, so no snaking any wires - thank goodness. We are getting a moveable mount from Costco. I don't think it is remote control though. That would be awesome.

Hm/RUDisney - we tried it in front of the window. First, you can't then open the windows unless we left a large gap, but my room is not that deep across the width so that wouldn't work. It is long. Plus, we have a very large "L" shaped sectional, so it blocked the whole window wall. It seemed unbalanced and closed in.

Now, my husband is thinking about moving the windows apart (3 windows together right now) and placing the tv between the windows. Oh, boy!

I'm going to call a contractor to see how much it would be to lower the fp. My hushand says that they would have to totally redo the fp and it would cost way too much. Any contractors out there?

 

[jrmasm]

I think a lovely part of a room is the fireplace. IMO a TV looks hideous above a mantle. We have our TV on the empty wall in a unit made for a lcd TV.
The firplace is the focal point of our room, not a TV.

I agree with every word. I really, really dislike this 'design' trend.

 

[TanyaLovesPooh]

Our tv is above our fireplace and we really enjoy it there, not uncomfortable at all. We do not use our fireplace though, we never did even before the tv went there.

 

[wendy46001]

Our tv is above the fireplace, works for us….
it was the best place to put this monstrosity to entertainment...
it’s a large room and the other 2walls are all windows,
plus its florida fireplace is purely decorative anyway