TV Unit Decor That Hides the Cables and Keeps the Room

A television is the largest black rectangle most living rooms will ever contain, and the unit under it is doing more work than any other piece of furniture in the room. It carries weight, it hides cables, it holds a soundbar that needs air, and it has to look like furniture while doing all three.

Most TV unit advice skips straight to finishes. The three numbers below decide whether the finish ever gets a chance.

The three numbers that matter

Width against the screen. The unit should be wider than the television, not equal to it. Add at least 6 inches either side of the screen's full width — not the diagonal the box quotes. A 55-inch television measures roughly 48 inches across, so the unit wants to be 60 inches or more. Anything narrower and the screen visually overhangs, which reads as unfinished no matter how good the cabinet is.

Height against your eyes. Sit on the sofa you actually own and measure from the floor to your eye. The centre of the screen wants to land within a few inches of that line, which for most sofas puts it 40 to 44 inches off the floor. Work backwards: subtract half the screen height, and what remains is your unit height. This is why 18 to 24 inches is the standard range, and why a tall sideboard usually puts the picture uncomfortably high.

Depth and airflow. Sixteen to 18 inches of depth takes a console, a soundbar and a router without anything overhanging the front edge. Leave at least 2 inches of clear space behind and above any device that generates heat, and never seal a games console into a closed cabinet without a ventilation cut — heat is what kills them, not age.

Cables, before anything else

Count the devices, then count the plugs. A television, a soundbar, a console and a streaming box is four plugs and at least three HDMI runs, and every one of them has to reach a socket that is usually in the wrong place. Decide where the power comes from before you choose a unit, because a beautiful cabinet with no cable route at the back becomes a beautiful cabinet with cables draped over it.

Brush plates, rear cut-outs and a single surge-protected block inside the unit solve almost every version of this. If the unit is going on the wall, run the cables inside a recessed conduit while the wall is still open.

Where these fifteen guides go

Start with the main ideas guide if you are choosing a unit, the living room and bedroom guides if you know the room but not the layout, and the styling guide once the unit is in and the surface has started collecting things. The wooden and modern guides cover materials and finishes in detail, including which ones show dust and which hide it.