I don’t yet have one of those super-duper big screen HD TVs for my house yet mostly because I don’t yet have a place to really put it. Right now I just have a 20 year old particleboard entertainment center along a large empty wall in my living room. I’m thinking about designing some built-in cabinets for that area, but I like the idea of hiding the HD TV when it isn’t in use so my living room can be both a formal room with no TV and an informal room when I have the TV on. Of course, TVs that are hidden and out of the way are also less likely to get damaged or broken by kids playing ball in the house or clumsy party guests or even agile pets.
It turns out there are a lot of cool options available that will help me display my TV but hide it from view too:
Hiding Your TV With Lift Cabinets
Premium TV Lift Cabinets
Picturehouse Cabinet’s Plasma TV Fireplace – This is pretty darn cool and it’s definitely at the top of my list for neat ways to hide a big screen TV. It’s an electric fireplace cabinet with a lift built into it which raises up when you want to watch TV and sinks back down into the fireplace (out of site and safe) when you don’t want to see the television. Each fireplace is made of solid wood and has a host of great luxury features include a remote control for the lift and the fireplace, hidden wires, and Smooth-Glide operation so you can still decorate your mantle. This free-standing fireplace requires no flu, can hold a TV up to 50″ in size and serves as a unique focal point and conversation piece! They really do have a lot of different fireplace styles, so they almost definitely have one that will fit your decor. They’re from Britain and they’re not cheap. Update: You can also find a few TV Lift Cabinet Fireplaces
Hide Your TV Behind Art
Television Art – Here’s a clever idea, why not take that flat screen television set and replace it with a piece of art when it’s not in use? Better yet, why not put the artwork over the TV? That’s exactly what you can do with Television-Art.com! It’s actually a really ingenious solution and it’s pretty affordable when you compare it to other methods of hiding your television. You can either hang the artwork on your television if it uses a stand or you can hang your artwork over a wall-mounted TV and really make it turn invisible. They update the selection of art they have available from time to time and they even offer monthly specials. Check out their photo gallery for more great ideas and uses.
Hidden Vision TV Mount – Looking for a truly unique way to hide your flat screen TV behind a piece of art? Check out the innovative extended flipping arm TV mount from Hidden Vision! These elegant and sturdy TV mounts come in three different varieties for some the serious TV enthusiast. They have a “Flip Around” model which flips the TV upside-down and hides it behind a piece of art when not in use, they have a standard arm and even an extended arm so that you can lie in bed and look up and watch your TV and then, when you’re down, it will fold neatly back against the wall behind a piece of art work. All the wires and cords are run through the metal mounting arms. There are some size limitations and because they flip your television upside-down they’re safe to use for LED and LCD screens but they you avoid mounting plasma screen TVs with these. You can install the mounts yourself if you’re handy and they really do seem to make quite a statement. They’re about half the price of a full-blown TV cabinet, so if you’re on a budget and but you still want something with some style, check these out.
Media Decor Moving Art and Media Mirror – Media Decor has two different options available to hide that wall-mounted flat panel TV. They manufacture frames which you put around your TV that mask the television when it is not in use. The Moving Art actually has a piece of artwork scroll down over your TV when it isn’t in use. They have a wide selection of artworks you can choose from or you can even submit your own custom piece of art. The Media-Mirrors are really pretty amazing looking. It’s sort of like a high-tech two-way mirror over your TV, but there’s more to it. They use “beam splitter” technology which means the mirror has a “high efficiency dielectric coating designed to transmit the TV picture at maximum brightness and reflect like a mirror when the TV is off.” These incredibly cool flat TV covers come with a variety of frames and customization options. They even have a version which rolls up the artwork and then slides out the TV out from the frame. UPDATE: Sadly, MediaDecor appears to be out of business. Please let me know if they are still around or have moved!
Other Ways To Hide Your TV
MK1 Studios Plasma TV Under bed Lift – So maybe you like to watch TV in bed but don’t really have anyplace to put that 50″ Plasma screen. That’s not a problem anymore with this under bed lift. This system actually fit around and under the bed and stores the TV completely out of view under the bed until you want to watch it. Then it lifts out from under the special bed frame and flips around for your viewing pleasure. The entire system is remote controlled and from what I can tell this is one heavy-duty lift system. The lift takes about 35 seconds to deploy from under the bed and allows you to rotate the screen so you could watch it from anywhere in the room, not just from the bed. They can fit a 50″ flat screen TV under a king size bed.
Frontgate Reversible Media Center – This is the cheapest of the options, but it’s also no longer available according to Frontgate’s website. This bookcase actually slides out and then turns around on a platter to reveal a wide screen TV. So you can impress your girlfriend’s parents with your leather-bound editions of Shakespeare and then chill with the guys and watch NASCAR two hours later. As far as I can tell this isn’t being made anymore mostly because it was fairly expensive for a cherry veneer product that you had to manually turn around.
Wall Mounted Cabinets Over Your TV – I’m not sure why this option isn’t more popular because a lot of people do wall-mount their flat screen televisions these days and then hide the TV wires inside the wall. I suppose finding the proper cabinet is the problem. If you’re looking for a rustic custom-made TV cabinet that will fit around your wall-mounted TV? Chatham Hill Designs will make a cabinet just to your liking and they have a number of different paint colors available. I’m not sure about shipping or production time, but it looks like craftsman Colin Miller really does a great job with these.
So it looks like I have some options. I’m not sure if I can actually afford any of them, but it’s fun to dream and see what’s available! It also makes the idea of building my own method for hiding a flat screen TV a good idea for a home project that I’ll have to plan out sometime soon.
Update: I now have a flat screen LCD HDTV and I’ll probably try mounting it on the wall in the next month or two. My primary concern is how I’m going to hide the TV wires inside the wall. It’s not quite the same as hiding the entire TV, but it will work well for the room I ended up putting it in. At some point I do hope to be able to hide my flat screen TV when I’m not using it.
There are even more options to conceal your TV!
http://www.importadvantage.com/Remington
[...] Ken wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptPicturehouse Cabinet’s Plasma TV Fireplace – This is pretty darn cool and it’s definitely at the top of my list for neat ways to hide a big screen TV. It’s an electric fireplace cabinet with a lift built into it which raises up when you … [...]
The writer is mistaken about the Reversable media center. I saw it in Oct 2007 made by Norwalk.
Peggy,
Can you find any other references for that reversible media center? The Norwalk Furniture website doesn’t seem to list it as a product. Could you have simply seen one that was left over and not yet sold?
Where can I purchase one of the above. I live in Poole Dorset England.BH17 7YN.Also can I use a LCD wide screen and not a plasma..I love the idea of it being in the mantel,but would the television still be covered by the warranty..?being over a fire..
I am interested in Media Decor Moving Art and Media Mirror for covering a flat screen tv. When I try to activate your link it DOES NOT work.
Thank you for your help.
Jay P Gibson (5-28-08)
Hey, you’re right! Media Decor used to have a forwarding page, but apparently it doesn’t work anymore. I changed the link for Media Decor… Try it now!
Media Decor wants almost $8000 for their art lift. They are out of their damn mind. I can fabricate one for a hell of a lot less. Keep dreaming and serving the extremely rich Media Decor. I’ll pay $500 and no more.
COOL IDEA: A decorative frame to fit around your flat screen TV!!!
I bought one (at a killer deal) from:
flatscreentvframes.com
Jaime
[...] How To Hide a Flats Panel TV: Now that flat panel televisions are really coming down in price it looks like a lot more people are buying them and realizing how BIG they really are (or your spouses are complaining that these televisions are taking up too much space on the wall!) Either way, a lot of people have been looking at clever ways to hide their large flat panel TVs from view and this post offers a few different solutions and ideas that are commercially available. [...]
I don’t know if Jamie is the guy I bought my frame from. I bought a frame from flatscreentvframes.com and put it up last night. My wife was about ready to take my 6K investment and throw it out. According to her Flat Screen Tvs are the anti-christ of home decorating. Now that the TV has a frame she wants to decorate the house with Flat Screen TVs. If your in the same boat check out this site and frame the TV before your wife makes you take it back.
D.W.
I am looking for a powered mount for a 60 inch flat screen. I want to build a cabinet above my fireplace mantle and have the tv drop down in front of the fireplace, hiding the fireplace. When it acsends back up, it hides itself up above the mantle.
Can you help me?
Try HD Envy, I got a frame from them for about $500. It uses a special bracket that mounts to your TV, I think the installation took me about 15 minutes. I got the Traditional in Cherry, the quality is awesome. You won’t be disappointed! http://www.hdenvy.com
http://www.finearttapestries.com has a great solution for hiding flat screen tvs. They use contemporary wall decor woven into tapestry that rolls up and out of sight. It looks good. For decorators and designers.
You all need to take a look at http://www.tvcoverups.com. Prices start at $399 allowing you to use your ow. Art to hide your flat screen when not in use. Also available in automatic for half the price of the roll-up!! We have even lifted a wall section with a model ship on it.
[...] and lighter and can easily be mounted on walls in a number of different ways. There are lots of custom options for hiding your TV when you aren’t using it, but if you’re like most people then hiding the TV itself is [...]
The Frontgate Reversible Media Center is no longer available. The hardware that allows the flat screen TV to spin around in a cabinet or in the wall can be purchased here: http://www.reversica.com. Woodworkers can finish the cabinets in whatever style their customers choose.
Another affordable alternative is a fine art TV cover from http://www.television-art.com It looks good, easy to place on the TV and is a fraction of the cost of TV mirrors or a TV lift system.
John
I love seeing all the different ways people come up with to conceal or camouflage their TV’s. They’re such an eyesore on the wall most of the time.
LCD Cabinet just came out with a new remote control product that’s pretty cool for concealing a flat screen. It’s a big, modern mirror that is automated and motorized. Here’s a link:
LCD TV Cabinet
great article. great ideas. i blogged it: http://wp.me/pdi8M-5k
The Frontgate Reversible Media Center was built by Hooker Furniture using the rotating hardware designed and manufactured by Reversica Design, Inc. [www.reversica.com] We sell this hardware to contractors, cabinetmakers and others so they can install it in their own custom furniture or finish the woodwork to match the decor of the client’s home. We also make hardware for hidden doors and have a slimmer rotating TV mount that can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yvsCNNA2lk
for previous post, link is http://www.reversica.com
If you want to see an affordable hidden TV on the market visit http://www.HVTVmounts.com; it’s unique, not as expensive as the other TV lifts on the market today, and you can add your own picture in the mount. Watch TV from bed with the Flip Out or in the dining room with the Flip Around.
We just got a new RCA LCD TV. We want to put the television on our TV console. It is a beautiful piece of furniture and could easily hold the new TV. My concern is that the TV would sit directly in front of our built-in air-conditioner. Could the AC harm the television? Thank you for you help.
Theresa,
Hmm, it’s difficult to say if an AC blowing directly on an LCD TV would harm it over the long term or not. I would think you’re probably okay, but you might want to call up RCA to be absolutely sure. Having that air constantly blown into the back of a TV could push more dust into the inner workings over time.
How much space is between your AC and your television? I would think you should be more concerned about blocking the air flow to the rest of your room and therefore reducing the efficiency of your air conditioner. That may make your AC work longer to have to cool your home and it could substantially increase your electric bill.
Let us know what you find out from RCA. Good luck!
It was great to see the solutions and I only wish I could have represented us in this article a bit sooner. We are Frame Your TV Ltd, we’re London based but ship internationally, and we hand make beautiful, bespoke, wooden frames to seamlessly blend the TV into its surroundings. We can hide it with our beam split mirror frame, available on all styles, and yes, we build moving artworks too. Take a look at us http://www.frameyourtv.co.uk ..we would love to hear from you!
Here’s what I did – easy, cheap & effective! http://bit.ly/xUtB5G