TV Placement Mistakes: Where Not to Put a TV in Your Living Room

Ever walked into someone's living room and immediately spotted the TV—awkwardly jammed in a corner or mounted way too high above the fireplace? I know I have. Even in my own Auckland flat, I once thought I'd struck gold by squeezing the TV between a bookshelf and a window. Spoiler: it gave me a sore neck and all the natural light made watching daytime rugby impossible. People get strangely creative with TV placement, but not always in a good way. Just because you can put your TV somewhere doesn’t mean you should. Let’s break down the pitfalls that make for awkward viewing, eye strain, and keep your space from feeling just right.

The Worst Spots to Place Your Living Room TV

You’d think any big blank wall should do the trick, but let’s be honest—where you put your TV really determines how comfy (or awkward) your whole living room feels. First up is the fireplace. In homes around Auckland, it’s almost a badge of honor to hang your telly above the mantel, but most folks end up regretting it. Not only do you get neck pain from looking up, the heat from the fireplace isn’t friendly to electronics. The University of Otago actually studied room temperatures near wall-mounted TVs and found a clear heat gradient that can reduce lifespan of your average television by a couple of years, especially in winter months when the fireplace sees daily use.

Next up: directly opposite a window. Sure, the natural light looks good on Instagram, but you’ll wrestle with glare every sunny day. In New Zealand, we get, on average, 2,000 sunshine hours a year, according to NIWA. That's a lot of TV backlighting, so picking the window wall for your TV is just asking for a permanent reflection of the Pohutukawa tree in the corner of your screen. Even fancy anti-glare screens only go so far before the laws of physics and Auckland’s “four seasons in a day” lighting take over.

Let’s not forget corners. TVs in corners always seem like you’re trying to make peace between your tech and your furniture layout, and the result is usually a little sad. Sound from corner setups reflects unevenly, making action scenes flat or tinny, even on expensive soundbars. As Quincy will tell you, watching Saturday cartoons from a weird angle also makes the colors look off—nobody wants a green SpongeBob. TV manufacturers design their best screens for direct, centered viewing. Stick one in a corner, and you’re wasting both the tech and your investment.

Another mistake? Right beside high-traffic areas, like next to the living room entry or by the main hallway. It becomes the ultimate distraction—the TV catches your eye every time you walk by. You never actually relax and pay attention to what’s on. And for families like mine, the constant movement in and out means Natasha’s favorite shows get interrupted by our son doing laps or sneaking a biscuit.

If you’re thinking of putting the TV above low furniture—think again. Placing a TV on a low console but sitting on a much higher sofa means your eye-level line and the center of the screen, known as the “sweet spot,” never match. Optometrists in Auckland see a spike in complaints about eye and neck strain during rugby season, which they link to poor home TV setups. The ideal center of the TV should align with your seated eye level, not your standing eye line.

How Bad TV Placement Affects Viewing and Living Room Style

People don’t just watch TV—they build entire rooms around that screen, so bad placement messes with more than your Netflix queue. For starters, there's science behind comfort and how we organize spaces. If your TV is the first thing you see walking into the room, it dominates and shrinks the perceived size of your space. Designers always nudge homeowners to treat TVs less like altars and more like supporting actors. A living room should invite conversation and focus, so putting the TV front and center—especially at the expense of art, bookshelves, or windows—can throw off the balance.

Lighting is another sneaky culprit. If overhead light or lamps hit your screen, you risk a festival of reflections, making it tough to see what's happening on screen. A study by Lighting New Zealand surveyed 57 Auckland homes and found almost 36% of owners struggled with annoying TV glare year-round. Adding blackout curtains or changing bulbs to reduce glare can help, but it’s much easier (and cheaper) to skip problematic walls and plan your setup right from the start.

Bad placement can also trip up your room’s flow. If you have to walk in front of others every time you want to leave the sofa—or worse, do gymnastics around the coffee table to reach the door—it’s a sure sign the TV isn’t in a good spot. You want an effortless path through your space, especially in homes where Sunday afternoon is a blur of family, friends, and the odd neighborhood kid dropping in unannounced. If everybody’s perched at weird angles to get a clear view, or your armchair ends up blocking half the bookshelf, something’s got to change.

Let’s talk cables. Placing your TV far from power outlets or data ports means long, ugly cords. Not only are exposed wires a visual mess, but the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in NZ traces a small but steady number of home accidents each year to tripping on electrical cords—most often in lounges and living rooms. Disguise cables behind walls or furniture, but don’t make things worse by putting your TV miles from where the power naturally lives.

Even style suffers. Ever seen a beautifully renovated living space, only to find a hulking TV parked in front of stunning wallpaper, original stained glass, or a show-stopping city view? It’s like wearing Crocs to a wedding. Make a hero out of your home’s finest features, and let the TV play a supporting role—camouflaged with a frame or behind cabinet doors if you must.

Check out this quick reference table—real data from NZ’s Real Estate Insights report on home staging (2024):

Those stats? They show people really notice (and dislike) bad TV placement, especially when shopping for a new home. It’s not just you being picky—first impressions matter, and a misplaced TV could cost you thousands when selling your place.

Smart Tips for Nailing Your Living Room TV Placement

So where should you absolutely avoid placing the TV, and what are some workarounds? It pays to plan. Find out how the furniture sits, where the sunlight falls through the room by mid-afternoon (especially in our unpredictable Auckland weather) and where your family actually wants to hang out. A tape measure is more useful than any app, but there are even TV placement calculators online from brands like Samsung and LG. Most experts recommend the center of a TV sit about 1–1.2 meters from the floor, which usually matches the average New Zealander’s eye level when seated.

Instead of crowding your fireplace, try a floating entertainment unit on the side wall, or tuck the screen behind sliding doors. If your only spot is opposite windows, invest in adjustable blinds and position the TV so natural light hits it from the side (not directly behind you or the TV). I’ve seen people use wall-mounted arms to pull the TV out for viewing and push it back when not in use—a game changer in tight spaces or open-plan setups.

If you’re stuck with a small living room, wall-mounting helps save floor space, but always check the wall framing so you’re not drilling into nothing but drywall. I learned that the hard way one weekend, almost turning our new TV into modern art. And pay attention to how sound travels—if your best wall is covered in heavy curtains or books, those will dampen both the screen brightness and the audio punch.

Arrange your sofa and chairs so everyone gets a clear, direct line to the screen. Angles matter: display tech (like OLED and QLED) gives a better side view than older LED screens, but nothing beats straight-on comfort. If you must angle the TV, keep it subtle—no more than 15–20 degrees off center, or you’ll notice loss of picture quality and color shift, especially during soccer matches or action sequences.

Don’t forget the room’s purpose. If you only use your living room to binge series and watch All Blacks games, a bold TV-centred setup might make sense. But if it’s where you host parties or read to your kids like Quincy before bed, blend the TV in with your bookshelves or use a piece of art to cover it when not in use. The *Frame* TV from Samsung’s popular for a reason—Natasha loves ours because half the time it just looks like a painting.

If you deal with lots of sunlight or reflections, there are anti-glare coatings and repositionable wall mounts to help. But nothing beats scoping out your living room during the brightest part of the day before you fix the TV in place. Watch out for sources of heat—like heat pumps and direct sunlight—which can gradually mess up displays over time. Power management is key too, so set the TV within convenient reach of outlets and use cable covers for a tidy look.

As a rule of thumb, never put your TV:

• Above an active fireplace or heat source
• Directly opposite large windows or bright light sources
• In a corner, especially deep corners with little airflow
• On high shelving that forces you to look up
• First thing you see walking into the room
• Next to doors/major walkways with lots of foot traffic
• On a wall with overloaded powerboards or visible mess of wires

Good TV placement isn’t just about avoiding headaches—though that’s part of it. It’s about making your space feel as inviting and functional as possible. Think about the home you want to create, and let your TV fit into that, not boss it around. A little planning, the right wall, and some clever furniture moves make movie nights—and daily life—a whole lot more enjoyable.