TV Considerations When Building a New Home

Mar 16, 2017

Buying or building a new home is such an exciting time. Oh, the possibilities! If you’re building, you can have anything you want – within your budget, of course. There is so much to think about, it’s easy to overlook details that can significantly affect your new home’s livability. One of those factors is your TV. Where will you put it and how will you power it?

“In the living room” isn’t a good enough answer. And your household may include multiple TVs. Building a new home gives you the chance to choose the ideal placement (and size) for your TV, no matter the room. These considerations will point you in the right direction:

#1: Traffic Patterns

What is the floor plan like? If you’re going for an open concept, will you want to see a TV from multiple rooms? With the right wall mount, your family can enjoy watching from virtually any angle. And if your family includes kids or pets (or you expect to add some in the future), wall mounting is by far the safest option for your TV.

(Hint: If you decide on wall-mounting during the design/construction stage, your contractor can easily place outlets directly behind your TV so you never have to worry about cords. If you add AV components like a satellite box, cable box, or gaming console after you move in, you can always add a cable tunnel.)

#2: Furniture Placement

This isn’t something you really think about when you’re looking at the blueprints of your future home, but you should. In a media room or home theater all activity revolves around the TV, so determining the placement is relatively easy since all the seating usually goes directly in front of the viewing area. 

It is those secondary viewing areas that require a different approach. Typically your activities in a bedroom, den or kitchen do not revolve around the TV so it needs to blend with the surroundings. In order to find the most logical place to mount your TV, it's important to visualize where the furniture will be, the kind of seating you plan, and how many people are likely to be watching the TV at a given time. By placing your TV on a full-motion mount like the OLF18, you can easily extend your TV out from the wall and swivel it to view when you want to, and place it back up against the wall when you don't. The beauty of this solution is that it provides you with a flexibility in TV placement, you are no longer tethered to dragging around a piece of furniture.

With your furniture and seating arrangements in mind, you’ll can determine how high to mount your TV. Using our handy SANUS HeightFinder makes it easy. Experts recommend that the center of the screen be at about seated eye level – if the TV is too high, you’ll get a stiff neck. Distance matters, too – with today’s TVs, closer is better. The experience is more immersive because screen fills your field of vision, and you get the full clarity of your TV’s resolution.

(Hint: If plans for your new home indicate you’ll be sitting farther away from the TV, this is the perfect time to upgrade to a larger screen.)

#3: Windows

Or other potential sources of reflection or glare. Natural light is a wonderful addition to any home, but it can play havoc with TV viewing. So can lamps and overhead lighting. A full-motion wall mount that swivels and tilts helps resolve this issue.

The more carefully you consider TV options when you’re building a new home, the more you’ll enjoy watching, gaming, etc. as your life unfolds.