How to Decorate the Wall Your TV Lives On

Every living room I’ve had since we left Texas has had the same problem: there’s no fireplace, so the TV is the focal point whether I like it or not. And a TV is a big black rectangle. It doesn’t take garland, it doesn’t take stockings, and it’s the one thing in the room I’m not allowed to cover up in December because that’s when everybody wants to watch Christmas movies.

I spent an embarrassing number of Decembers trying to decorate the TV. Greenery draped over the top corner. A little garland framing the screen. One year I put candlesticks on both sides of it, and my husband moved them both to the floor twenty minutes into a movie because they were in his eyeline. (He was right. I was annoyed, but he was right.)

What finally fixed it was giving up on the screen entirely and decorating the console underneath it. The TV stays a black rectangle. The console becomes the thing your eye goes to. Here’s exactly how I do it now, in the order I do it.

1. Measure the console, not the wall

This is the whole trick and it took me way too long to figure out. When you shop for garland, you naturally buy the 9-foot one because that’s the standard, and then you get it home and it’s twice as long as your TV stand and you end up piling it in a lumpy heap at both ends!

Measure the top of your console and add about a foot. My console is 58 inches, so I want somewhere around 6 feet of garland — which means one 9-foot piece, cut. Yes, cut it! Faux garland is just wired branches and a wire cutter goes right through it. I save the extra piece for the front door or a bathroom shelf.

I use a 9-foot Norfolk pine garland for this because it’s soft and full and doesn’t have that shiny plastic look that reads as fake from across the room. It lays flat instead of springing up, which matters a lot when it’s sitting six inches under a screen.

2. Run the garland along the front edge, not the back

Here’s the part I had to learn twice. If you put the garland against the wall behind the TV, it sticks up into the bottom of the screen and you’ll see it moving in your peripheral vision all night! Put it along the front edge of the console instead, so it drapes slightly over the lip.

The garland is now below the screen entirely, it reads as a mantel from anywhere in the room, and it doesn’t touch a single vent or cord. If your console is really shallow, run it just along the front two-thirds and let both ends taper off.

Tuck the ends down at the corners so they curl toward the floor. It’s the same move you’d make on a real mantel and it instantly makes a rectangular box look intentional!

3. Hang stockings from the console front

I’ve written before about hanging stockings without a fireplace, and the TV console is honestly one of the best spots — it’s already the wall everyone looks at.

If your console top is at least a few inches deep in front of the TV, weighted stocking holders are the easy answer. They just sit there. No hardware, no holes, and you can slide them around until the spacing looks right (I always end up moving mine three times).

If your console is too shallow, or if you’re like me and have a small person in the house who thinks a heavy metal hook on a low shelf is a gift, use Command’s matte black stocking hangers on the front face of the cabinet instead. They hold 3 pounds each, they come off clean in January, and they’re renter-safe. Just check where your cabinet doors open before you stick anything down. I stuck three hangers directly over a door I open every single day!

4. Use flameless candles, and put them at the ends

Real candles on a TV console are a bad idea for about four reasons, but the one that actually ruins your night is that somebody always has to move one. Flameless solves it. I use a set of three real-wax LED candles with a remote and timer — the remote is the whole reason I bought this particular set, because I am not crawling behind a garland every night to switch three candles on!

Put them at the far ends of the console, outside the TV’s footprint. Never in the middle! The middle of that console has to stay clear or you’ve recreated the exact problem you were trying to fix.

Set the timer for 6 hours starting around 4pm and you never think about them again. That’s my favorite kind of decor!

5. Add a floating shelf if you want an actual mantel

If you’re willing to put holes in the wall (renters, skip to number six), a mantel-style floating shelf mounted above the TV is a real fix and not just a decorating trick. It gives you a second surface, it makes the TV look built-in instead of stuck-on, and it’s up year round.

The one thing to get right: mount it high enough that you’re not looking at the underside of it from the couch. Sit down on your couch first, have someone hold a yardstick against the wall, and mark where it stops being in your way. A 60-inch solid wood mantel shelf with a hidden bracket is what I’d get — it’s the same look as a real mantel for a fraction of what a surround costs, and the invisible bracket means no visible hardware over your TV.

Then decorate that shelf and leave the console simpler. You don’t need both loaded up!

6. Lighting that doesn’t glare off the screen

This is the part I get asked about most, and the rule is simple: nothing warm and glowing above the top edge of the console, and nothing pointed at the screen.

A TV screen is a mirror the moment a movie goes dark. Anything bright and stationary in front of it will show up as a little floating dot right in the middle of the sad part of the movie! So I run warm white copper wire fairy lights inside the garland on the console, woven deep enough that you’re seeing glow and not bulbs, and I keep the whole strand below the screen. The copper wire is thin enough to disappear into the branches, and this set has a remote so it goes on and off with everything else.

Two more things, both of them learned in front of a paused movie: warm white only (cool white looks blue against a black screen and it’s harsh), and check your work from where you actually sit. Turn the TV off, turn the lights on, sit on the couch, and look at the black screen. If you can see a reflection, move it. That thirty-second check has saved me every year since!

7. Deal with the cords before you decorate, not after

This is the least fun part of the whole job, but a beautiful garland with a tangle of black cords hanging below it looks worse than no garland at all!

If your TV is wall mounted and the cords run down the wall, a paintable cord raceway kit is genuinely worth the afternoon. It’s cuttable PVC channel with adhesive backing, you paint it your wall color, and the cords just vanish. If your TV sits on the console, use a couple of velcro ties to bundle everything behind the cabinet and pull the bundle to one side, then let that side be the side you put the fuller garland end on.

Do this first! Every time I’ve tried to fix cords after styling the console, I’ve knocked half the decor off.

The sightline test

Before you call it done, sit down on the couch. Not standing in the doorway admiring it — actually sit where you’ll be watching from. Can you see the whole screen? Is anything poking into the bottom edge? Would somebody have to move something to get comfortable?

If the answer is no, no, and no, you’re finished. The wall looks like Christmas, the TV still works like a TV, and nobody has to relocate a candle to watch Elf!

If you decorate your TV wall this year, post it on Instagram and tag me @sugardesignco — I want to see what y’all do with that awkward black rectangle!

-Ciera

Made something with this? Tag me @sugardesignco — I love seeing them.