Posted on: August 5, 2009
Play Nice
Get your home ready for primetime with décor that complements your flat-screen TV
By Jeff Schnaufer
CTW Features
Image courtesy Sony
Think your new flat-screen television will dominate the rest of your current home décor? Well, think again.
"There are definitely some tricks to draw your eye away from the TV," says Kristianne Watts, owner of KW Designs in Solana Beach, Calif.
"Your eye goes to what is pretty and if you put attractive items around it or on top or bottom of it, it works," says Margi Kyle, a Cornelius, N.C.-based interior decorator who is best known as the Designing Doctor.
If there is built-in shelving and cabinetry on either side of the TV, paint the wall behind the shelving to add some interest with color and contrast, Watts suggests.
With furniture and media cabinetry being designed to accommodate the sleek profiles of flat screens, these televisions can appear in nearly any room, in places where you never would have thought to put a television before - even above the fireplace.
"The fireplace is usually the focal point, and with the TV above the fireplace it accomplishes two things at once," Kyle says.
"You can also get a very large stretched canvas and hang it over [the TV] when not in use," Kyle suggests. "If it is just the flat screen on a extended stand, greenery underneath it is great."