How to Decorate Around Your TV: 8 Tips and Tricks

The television has evolved from a bulky box into a sleek, sophisticated wall piece. But at the same time, home TV screen sizes get bigger and bigger every year.

And since the days of setting your TV on a stand and forgetting it are long gone, home decorators now have to walk the middle path between how to decorate around TVs and how to keep them out of sight.

This article covers the best of both worlds. We’ll explore 8 decorating solutions that balance transforming your television area into a stylish focal point and seamlessly blending it into your interior design. 

We’ll reveal how to mix and match these concepts, and how to use SelfStorage.com to keep your living room organized and stylish.

Create a Gallery Wall

One of the most practical ways to integrate your television into your living space is by creating a dynamic gallery wall. The gallery is especially effective for flat-screen, wall-mounted TVs. Instead of a lone black rectangle, your TV becomes a piece of a comprehensive and visually engaging art installation.

• A well-curated gallery wall can anchor the room, showcasing your personal style and taste while subtly drawing attention away from the screen itself.
• Start by positioning your wall-mounted TV as the central element.
• Then, arrange a collection of decorative accessories like framed prints, photographs, and wall art to decorate around the TV.

The key to a successful gallery wall lies in being intentional with your layout composition. For example, you can use a consistent color palette across your frames or artwork to create a harmonious display.

You can hang a variety of different frame sizes and decoration shapes to add some dynamism to the visual. 

You can scatter the art in uneven formations while maintaining a balanced spacing between them to prevent the arrangement from feeling cluttered. 

However you choose to approach the layout style, keep in mind that the objective is to create a harmonious collection where the TV is part of the narrative, not the sole subject.

Mount the TV on a Feature Wall

You can make your wall-mounted TV feel less imposing and more like a deliberate design choice by creating a feature wall section to hang it on. In general, a feature wall is a highly affordable DIY project that can help refresh your space. 

A feature wall is a wall section that’s markedly different from the rest of the wall space in the room. For example, you can install wood textured wall panels, hard finishes, textured black wall, wallpaper, stone cladding, fluted wall panels, a bold painted dark wall color,m or a black accent stripe.

Showcasing the wall behind the TV can distract from the black screen, helping it to blend into the different aesthetic of the feature wall, which already stands out from the rest of the room before the TV is even installed.

Add Shelves

Don’t like the idea of having a flat screen mounted against a bare wall? To add depth and interest to your TV wall, integrate a built-in or floating shelf system above, under, or around your screen. You can opt for floating shelves, traditional mounted shelves, or integrated shelving units to surround your television. 

• You can use the shelves to hold decorative items, such as vases, books, and keepsakes. 
• Or you can use them in conjunction with your TV by using them as storage for cords and controllers, Blu-Ray players, or sound bars to help.
• A well-placed floating shelf beneath a wall-mounted TV can discreetly store a soundbar, gaming consoles, or streaming devices, to help declutter your apartment. 

Or maybe you’re looking to house more comprehensive entertainment systems. Incorporating shelving as part of a larger entertainment center or custom-built ins ensures that all your media needs are met while maintaining a polished and organized look.

Hide It in an Armoire

If you don’t want a giant flat screen to be the focal point of your room, hide it. A large TV console with closing doors is a great way to conceal your electronics and maintain a media-free environment when you want one.

Armoires, large wardrobes with accordion style hinges or repurposed antique secretary desks surrounded by sliding cabinet doors can be customized to house flat-screen televisions. 

You can keep the doors closed when you’re not watching TV to maintain the appearance of a well-designed room. When it’s time to watch your favorite shows, just open the doors.

Keep your apartment organized and stylish by looking for wardrobes with doors that slide inside the unit. With doors that slide into the cabinet, you’ll be able to enjoy an unobstructed view of the TV from different seating areas in your room.

Hide It Behind Barn Doors or Curtains

Put your TV out of sight and out of mind and embrace a rustic or industrial design aesthetic by keeping it behind barn doors, IKEA panels, black shades, or drop clothsby concealing it behind a set of barn doors. 

We love the barn door trend, especially in living rooms and apartments decorated with rustic decor. From painted reclaimed wood to sleek, modern designs, barn doors can make a significant design statement while serving a practical purpose. 

When closed, they keep the place feeling spacious while creating a decorative focal point. When open, they frame the television for viewing.

To create a barn door covering for your TV, simply mount a metal rod or wood bar that juts out a few inches in front of your TV screen. Mount two doors on metal hooks that you can slide left to right over the rod. 

When you want to watch TV, slide the doors apart or pull back the curtains or TV cover. When you want to hide it, slide them together.

Mount Your TV Above the Fireplace

Unless you love traditional, classic design, there’s no need to hang a family portrait over the fireplace.

Instead, use the wall above your fireplace to mount and display your flat screen. Picture a TV above your dark gray fireplace, with a rip-roaring fireplace screen to patch the fire below. Rather than hiding the fact that there’s a TV there, you’ve made it a focal point. 

In order to pull this off, you’ll need to make sure that the position of your fireplace works with the layout of the room. Unless your furniture faces the fireplace or angles towards it, this won’t work.

If you have a mantel that you like to decorate, make sure you hang your screen high enough so that your decorative items won’t block the bottom of the screen.

No matter what size screen you have, make sure you have total visibility from top to bottom and edge to edge.

Decorate Around the TV with a Picture Frame

For those of you who are handy, you can turn your TV screen into a distinctive work of art by creating a frame around it. With a few pieces of wood and a drill, a TV frame is pretty easy to make.

Check out Pinterest ,and you’ll find tons of inspirational ideas that refresh your place’s mood, vibe, and design style. You can build your frame to fit perfectly around your screen and match other furniture or decorative items within your home.

And in this case, we don’t just mean leaving it black or on the fireplace screen. Companies like Samsung offer Frame TVs, such as the Samsung Frame TV, which are specifically designed to display artwork when not in use, effectively doubling as a dynamic piece of art. 

For those with standard televisions, DIY framing kits or custom carpentry can create a similar effect. A light wood TV frame, for instance, can introduce a warm, natural element to the room. And a bright pastel color palette can soften the clunky technology vibe of the screen.

Prefer something a bit more dramatic? Opt for an ornate frame or an oversized frame that surrounds your screen but still lets the wall color show through (like a mat board around a photo). It’s a great way to highlight the TV yet add your own personal flair to its sleek, modern design.

Place it on a Bookshelf

Bookshelves aren’t just for books.

Designers often display artwork and flowers alongside books to create sophisticated shelving displays. So why not display your TV as well?

Of course, you’ll need to make sure that your bookshelf has an opening big enough to display your TV. Once you’ve taken the measurements, try placing your screen in the center of the bookshelf. 

You can install some LED backlighting to make the TV look interesting even when it’s off.  And when it’s on and you’re watching TV, it will be hard to ignore all those books around you, so it might even guilt you into reading more!

Mix and Match

Why choose just one idea from our list? You can mix and match these TV decor ideas to decorate around your TV and transform it into a seamless, stylish statement.

The diverse array of decorating solutions available allows for personalization that reflects individual tastes and practical needs. Whether you choose to integrate your TV into a vibrant gallery wall, conceal it behind elegant cabinet doors, or showcase it within a beautifully styled bookshelf, the key is intentionality.

Consider the TV’s role as a potential focal point and how surrounding elements can either accentuate or soften its presence. By combining aesthetic choices with functional storage solutions such as media consoles and entertainment centers, you can create a media space that is both visually appealing and practical.

Consider Self Storage 

Sometimes the most effective way to decorate around your TV  is removing things that just don’t mesh well in your current space. Knowing which items work well for external storage and when the investment makes financial sense can improve your TV decor experience.

Items perfect for storage include seasonal furniture, like patio sets or holiday decorating supplies, extra electronics you’re not currently using, books and media collections you want to keep but don’t use regularly, and artwork or decorative pieces that don’t fit your current TV decoration scheme but hold sentimental value. 

Although these things often represent significant financial or emotional investments, making disposal feel wasteful, they can eat up valuable space that could be better used for daily necessities.

Think about the cost comparison between storage solutions and larger living spaces. In many markets, the monthly cost of a small storage unit is less than one-tenth the additional rent needed for an extra room. For items you don’t need daily access to, a storage unit offers significant savings while letting you keep ownership of the things you value most.

Accessibility should also guide your storage decisions. Items needed seasonally (holiday decorations, winter sports equipment) work well for external storage since you can plan pickup and delivery around known schedules. But things you might need unexpectedly should stay easily accessible in your home.

Climate-controlled options protect valuable items from temperature changes and humidity that could cause damage over time. Important documents, family photos, electronics, and wooden furniture benefit from climate-controlled storage environments, especially in areas with extreme weather.

The decision to use external storage often gives you the breathing room necessary to properly organize remaining items. Without the pressure of finding space for everything you own, you can focus on creating efficient systems for daily necessities while knowing treasured but rarely used items stay safe and accessible.

How SelfStorage.com Can Help Decorate Around Your TV

Transforming your living room to effectively integrate and decorate around your television doesn’t always require extensive renovations or costly custom installations. 

The journey to a more organized and aesthetically pleasing media space often begins with thoughtful decluttering and smart utilization of existing resources. 

Acknowledging what truly needs to be in your daily living environment versus what can be stored elsewhere is a fundamental step. That’s where self-storage comes into the picture. 

Storing seasonal items, old electronics, or even decorative pieces that don’t align with your current vision allows you to declutter your primary living area. This freed-up space lets you implement new decorating solutions we mentioned, like creating a sophisticated gallery wall, installing a functional media console, or setting up wall panels. Whether you’re aiming to hide your TV behind sliding cabinet doors, frame it with a light wood TV frame

Now you can style the extra space with elements like sculptural pieces, throw pillows, and a strategic lighting refresh, ensuring your TV area becomes a harmonious and beautiful part of your home.

Ready to live more intentionally in your living space? Use our free self storage search tool to find affordable storage units near you to safely store seasonal items, sentimental pieces, and rarely used belongings while you transform your daily living space by decorating around your TV.