5 Clever Ways to Hide Your TV in Any Room

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

For as long as consumer televisions have existed, they have been a constant presence in living rooms, bedrooms, and just about every other room in your home. While it’s not unusual for a TV to be in any room, not everyone wants their TV to be the centerpiece of a room, whether for design purposes or simply because they don’t want guests to think they’re just watching TV. Fortunately, as televisions and home decor have become more advanced, it has become much easier to conceal screens, whether by hiding them behind covers or using screens designed to be hidden.

With a little creativity, perhaps a flexible budget and some DIY skills, you can hide, disguise and disguise TVs just about anywhere in your home. Using this approach, you can transform your living room into a transformative entertainment center, have a television greeting you at the foot of your bed in the morning, or even pop a screen that seems to come out of your wall.

Chances are the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is look at a screen, whether you get your news on a TV or turn off the alarm on your iPhone. Granted, it’s not the healthiest way to start your day, but if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it with a bit of futuristic style. Specifically, you can mount a flat-screen TV on a lifting mechanism that pops out at the foot of your bed to greet you in the morning, then retracts out of sight when it’s time for bed at night.

You can find various cabinets on Amazon that have a built-in lifting mechanism in the center, with a cavity sized for flat screens up to about 60 inches. Simply mount the TV in this cavity and place the unit at the foot of your bed or on the back wall, press a button and the TV pops out for your viewing pleasure. It would be simpler to use a pre-made cabinet for this approach, but if you’re feeling industrious, you can create a custom rack and install it directly into your bed frame. All you really need is a motor mechanism, a wireless receiver, and some wood. You can also use a similar approach to hide a television in a kitchen island, for example.

Alongside televisions, projection devices have also become both smarter and more compact. Many modern projectors from major brands are either compatible with smart streaming sticks or have these features built-in, allowing them to supplant your TV entirely. All you need to get this job done is a projector screen, and thanks to their flexible, foldable design, projector screens are very easy to store out of sight.

You can discreetly place a projector on a high shelf on one side of the room, then place a rolled-up projector screen on the other side, hiding its housing among regular shelves or moldings. When it’s TV time, simply remove the screen and turn on the projector, and you have cinema-style entertainment. This is a great approach if you don’t have a lot of space for a large TV or just don’t want your living room walls to look cluttered. It would be simpler to use a simple drop-down, classroom-style projection screen, but you can also opt for a motorized screen that unfolds with the press of a button.

The desire for more discreet TVs is not exclusive to consumers; Electronics brands know that some users want something that can fit into existing decor for stylistic purposes. It was for this particular approach that frame TVs appeared on the scene, specialized flat-panel, wall-mounted models designed to look like a beautiful piece of modern art while concealing their actual screens.

If you want a discreet TV setup for your living room, den, or other room where you regularly entertain, a frame TV, such as Samsung’s Frame TV or a cheaper alternative like the HiSense CanvasTV, is a good selection. Simply turn on the TV and switch it to Art mode, and it will display a lovely piece of modern art. Surround your TV with other art on the wall in different shapes and sizes, and the whole thing will look like a stylish art gallery to the casual observer. Not only is it a great way to inject a little culture into any room in your home, but it’s also great fun to surprise a guest by pulling out the remote and revealing that the piece of art they were admiring was actually a flat-screen TV.

In a similar vein to frame TVs, electronics brands have tinkered with other ways to make your screens a little less obvious, not to mention more adaptable to other rooms in your home. You might think, for example, that it would be quite difficult to hide a television in a bathroom or dressing room. Maybe ten years ago, but today there are mirror TVs, which allow you to hide a TV even in the most obvious places, like a simple decorative mirror.

Mirror TVs are exactly what they sound like: TVs with an optically mirrored panel that can be turned off or on with the press of a button. When the TV is inactive, and assuming you’ve hidden its wires well, it’s nothing more than a regular mirror you can look at yourself in while doing your hair in the morning. However, with another squeeze, the mirrored plating falls away, revealing a real TV screen for getting your morning news or enjoying it in the bathtub. A mirror TV can fit anywhere you would normally place a decorative mirror, although some mirror TVs are also waterproof, like the Elecsung Smart Mirror, so a bathroom would probably be the first place to consider.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to hiding a TV in your home. Maybe you’d prefer to have a specific TV that doesn’t fit into pre-made cabinets, or maybe more advanced, self-hiding models are out of your price range. If you can’t afford a pre-made TV or motorized cabinet, it might be time to roll up your sleeves and make up the difference with pure elbow grease.

The easiest way to hide a TV is to create a wall-mounted sliding cover, tailored to the dimensions of your favorite TV. In reality, making something like this wouldn’t be that difficult, provided you’re familiar with a power drill and wall-mounting techniques. In fact, this approach offers a lot of flexibility, as you can make your sliding cover from a wide range of materials, from fiber art to slatted wood to woven canework. No matter what material you make the cover from, simply mount it on a sliding rail and move it out of the way when you want to watch TV. You can also build a cover directly into your wall and have it opened to reveal an internal cavity, although this would require specialist skills and knowledge which you should not casually attempt.