THE BEST FREESTANDING DESIGNS TVS (+ THE ONE I BOUGHT)

My living room is quite long and narrow, and it has alcoves across two chimney breasts, which all in all is a bit of a nightmare when you’re trying to find a spot to put the TV. I wish I could say I was that level of cool that I don’t watch TV and could handle having a little one in the corner, but I’m not, and we use it a lot. Here’s the set up we were stuck with for a long time - a 44” (I think) on top of a chest that’s much smaller than it - safe to say it is less than ideal. For the re-design of the living room, I was trying to think of a solution to solve this, and it turned out a freestanding TV was the answer.

Freestanding here means that it comes almost as a individual piece of furniture - it doesn’t rely on having to sit on top of something else, and the respective designers have thought about how it sits as a discrete object in your space, which in my case means that it can be a little more versatile in moving around my room.

Here are three such examples of freestanding designers TVs, and as far as I’m concerned they are all things of beauty.

This one is the Beovision Harmony from Bang & Olufsen. See those oak panels sitting below it, when the TVs turned off, they flip up in front and completely cover the screen and then open up again, like a butterfly, when the TV is on. The TV also raises itself to optimum viewing height. Fancy stuff but also major ££££$$$!#££££. Go watch the video here as it’s a hard one to explain in words.

This one is the Bild 5 from Loewe. Let’s be honest all these TVs are on the more premium end of the price spectrum just for the concept of them alone, but we’re talking much more achievable price tag compared to the Bang & Olufsen one. I like this design though - it’s inspired by 1960s décor and comes wall-mounted, deck-mounted or on this retro wooden stand. Main problem for me is that fancy TVs sometimes only come in mansion house sizes, and the smallest for this is 55”, which in my living room might as well be an IMAX cinema screen.

And here’s my new fave! I first spotted the Samsung Serif originally in Cate St Hill’s living room, only to quickly discover they didn’t sell them anymore. Then, they brought them back for 2019, and I’ve been pretty obsessed by the idea of one. Sizes start at 43” which was just right for me, and it has a lot of cool functions, such as Ambient Mode that means it doesn’t just have to sit as a big block of black in your living room when you don’t have the TV on.

We found the Serif on AO.com so that’s one option if you want to buy it, but when we went to the John Lewis website, we found it in a few coloured versions. Now, normally that wouldn’t be my vibe, but we found this Clay version of the Samsung Serif that ended up being pretty much perfect for the room scheme.

This is it in the space. It has a wire holder to keep the plug and TV aerial nice and tidy, which makes it really work despite no furniture to hide behind. We actually ran an aerial cable under the floorboards from across the room to get a super neat finish.

So what do you think of my new TV? Would you have one in your house or are you more of a hide the TV away sort of person?