Need help arranging your living room furniture around a fireplace and TV? Get inspired by our helpful tips and tricks for creating an inviting space that feels balanced and visually pleasing. Create the perfect look with ease using our step-by-step guide.
Jump to:
The Basics of Arranging Living Room Furniture with a Fireplace and TV
Traditionally a fireplace would have been the feature point of a room. Families would have gathered around the fire for warmth in the absence of central heating. As time has moved on, we have started heating our homes with radiators instead of fires and the TV has become the focal point of the living room - the new place where families gather together in the evening.
Yet, in a more recent twist, fireplaces are coming back into fashion, even in modern and new build houses there will usually be a fireplace in the living room - leaving us with a problem of how to set up a living room with two focal points like this.
Wall mounted above the fireplace
The obvious and easiest place to put the TV when you also have a feature fireplace is above the fireplace itself. This way you still only have one feature point in the room and you can arrange your furniture to reflect this. Have a coffee table in the middle of the room and arrange sofas and armchairs around the coffee table, facing in the direction or pointing towards the TV / fireplace wall. This layout works really well for small spaces, square rooms and a small living room as you are consolidating the usable space to one area., which the seating arrangement focused accordingly.
TV hidden in a picture
If you have a smart TV then you can effectively hide the TV by making it look like a picture or piece of art. Some TV's have this option built in, but if not you can take a look at Netflix or YouTube and you will find many examples of screensavers which you can put on to make your TV look like a picture on the wall - adding atmosphere to your room but not deflecting from the focal point fireplace. High specification TVs are perfect for utilising like this so if you can find some great 8k TV deals that would be amazing.
Arrange your seating areas so that you will enjoy a view of the TV when it is turned on.
This is an interior designers dream as they hate to decorate around a TV - and with a TV like this they won't have to. It is also brilliant for small rooms where you want to hide the size of the TV if it would overwhelm the room and ensures that the focal point of the room is not an electrical device but a piece of art.
If you have your TV set up like this you can either have it above the fireplace, or on the opposite wall so that your furniture can be utilised if you are facing in either direction. You'll be surprised how many people don't realise it is a TV when they walk in!
Create zones
If you have a room big enough, or have an open plan space it is a good idea to create different zones. This way you can have several areas - a TV on a stand with sofas and armchairs around, a cosy fireplace corner with comfortable chairs, blankets and maybe a tempting bookcase, and even a dining area with a table and chairs in a separate area. An accent chair would work really well in front of a corner fireplace in this setup and don't forget a basket of blankets and fire tools and utensils to be kept by the side of the fireplace. Often you can have a kitchen off to the side in this space too. This is a great way to set up a family room living room layout so you can all spend time together in the same space but enjoying different things. Define different zones easily by using a large area rug and make the most of natural light in different areas of the room.
Consider your furniture arrangement carefully as you don't want a large area to feel cluttered when you have an open floor plan. Make sure that there is enough space to walk comfortably between 'zones' and that there is nothing in the center of the room, instead planning your furniture layout into different areas on the periphery. If you have a high ceiling this is great as it will add to the feeling of the unique design of the room and make it feel more like a large space.
A freestanding fireplace is a great modern design that will give you extra space in a scenario like this. There is no fireplace mantel to consider and no tv stand so you will have extra floor space to place a rug in front of the fireplace for example. A dramatic fireplace area like this is sure to be the center of attention, even in a large room. If you are into entertaining having an area like this gives you plenty of space for extra seating so that people can congregate in different parts of the living area.
TV Alongside The Fireplace
Another way to set up your TV and fireplace is to set them up alongside each other. This isn't a setup that immediately springs to mind but it can work if you have a large area with long walls to the side of a centred fireplace. This is another way of creating zones, in a linear way and would work well if you have a young family where you need to be close to each other but also want to enjoy different aspects of the environment. If you have a young family it is worth considering an electric fireplace and make sure that it is blocked off from small people.
Having the TV set up alongside the fireplace works really well for narrow living rooms, especially those that have been knocked through so that the area next to this can be used as a dining room area. Make sure that there is enough room for the sofa / armchairs to fit in front of both spaces and include side tables to put drinks / snacks on.
I hope that you found this post useful when thinking about how to set up your living space and how to arrange living room furniture with fireplace and TV. Share this post with your friends and Pin it for later...
You might also like these posts...
Is Your Living Room Missing Something? It Could Be This
Leave a Reply