" Keep in mind that every expensive custom built in solution has a short life, since technology changes so fast."

Amen to this, and not just for TVs..... have learned the hard way :-(

I hope this doesn't sound awful and presumptuous, and I'm not telling anyone what to do, but just wanted to share some information I read which I happen to agree with. For the sake of a more restful sleep and greater intimacy with your partner, there are quite a few psychologists etc. who feel that once you enter your bedroom the rest of the world should be left behind, and the bedroom should be a serene and quiet place. Watching TV with your partner is not really a sharing thing but rather it hinders communication, and even if you sleep alone your mind should not be filled up to the last moment with noise and movement. Obviously many of you have TV's in your bedroom and will think otherwise, and that's fine. For me it was something that sounded right, and I've never had the slightest wish to have a TV outside of the room in which it sits. I hope I haven't offended anyone, and please carry on doing whatever makes you feel happy.

You might want to check the TV you want to buy first. Some have speakers on the back now, and with the frame around it your sound might be muffled quite a bit.

Your second picture looks a lot nicer - BUT, I think there would be an issue with the TV overheating, unless there are vents in the wall we can't see (which is entirely possible). We have a 50" TV on a Sanus heavy-duty mount (good for up to a 71" TV) and every night when I push it back against the wall, I can feel considerable heat on the lower-RH side, right on the back rim of the TV.

We watch TV in the bedroom. No TV in the LR/DR/kitchen area. We're retired, so we have no trouble sleeping after watching TV, since nobody cares when we get up - LOL!

Watching TV actually helps me fall asleep. When there are times we dont watch TV before bedtime, I cant shut my mind off, it wonders all over the place.

We watch tv a lot in our house. i love having a tv in my bedroom. It's our own space. The tv is on a stand in the corner of the rm. I bought a riser so that helps a lot. it makes it more comfortable to watch in bed. I wish that I could have it on the dresser, but my husband doesn't like that idea, so I just have to live with it in the corner. I'm okay with that though. Having it on the dresser would eliminate some clutter. I think that's a great idea. It's a real luxury for me to have my own tv in my own bedroom. I love it.

One of the things I look forward to all week long is watching tv in bed on Saturday mornings. Unlike my workday routine, it's positively luxurious to be able to return to the bed with a cup of coffee, prop up on the pillows, and watch my DVR'd British mystery. Ahhhh, bliss.

When I was working, I did the same thing TR.

Ingrid, We have always had a TV in our bedroom. There are a some shows that DH and I watch together and watching them in bed together is wonderful. We have been happily married for 44 years so having a TV in our bedroom certainly has not hindered our communication. My question was about how to conceal the sides of a TV not whether we should have a TV in our bedroom. I found your post totally irrelevant to what I was asking.

I have a tv in nearly every room, no shame or excuses here, I accept them for what they are and how they look, and I like watching PBS at night in bed. That said, I like my wall mounted TV's, and had the wiring and electrical installed inside the walls behind each set. I really don't see a problem with the wires showing, even the one in the DR area which I often pull out to see while working in the kitchen. (I particularly appreciate my rooftop antennas so I have no cable boxes nor cable bills. Don't get many stations, that's true, but really don't care. )I also will never want to watch a movie on a postage stamp screen. I don't think frames around tvs look right either, and in fact think a close frame might interfere in being able to maneuver it; I pull mine out frequently to clean the back..... RoseAbbey, I wonder if it's one of those things that would become a non-issue for you over time.

I think most people still have tvs. We don't use our that much - but they're there when we want them! I absolutely never, ever watch on my laptop.

My sincere apologies, RoseAbbey. My post was a mistake that I very much regret.

I live alone in a small house. I have four TVs and pay DirecTV for each connection. No shame either, nor am I a TV addict. They've just sort of accumulated over time and I like having options. I'm way more addicted to the Internet..

On the note of intimacy with a TV....I have to have a tv on to sleep, my DH has to have a fan on turbo blast to sleep.....I agree not the most romantic but we manage.

On the note of intimacy with a TV....I have to have a tv on to sleep, my DH has to have a fan on turbo blast to sleep.....I agree not the most romantic but we manage.

I have adult children in my home and sitting in bed with some popcorn and a movie is a great date night to me. We don't have to dress up , etc....Edited to add that because of adult children the bedroom is a haven even if it is only for watching a movie.

People who stream tv from the internet obviously don't live in the country where they can only get satellite internet with limited data usage. That's all I'm sayin' about that! <g>

RoseAbbey, Our bedroom tv is on the wall above a closet and at the foot of the bed. It's hung just a few inches from the ceiling which is perfect for viewing while laying down. I'm a stickler for wires too and have no problem with what you can see IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR IT. If you're not out to look for the bundle of wires behind the tv, it's just not noticeable. I don't care for either of the frame options.

As for connecting your bedroom tv to the box in another room, we do that. But you'll have to have RF remotes. The signal from these remotes don't have to include the box to aim it at and can travel thru walls into other rooms. We have 5 TVs and two Directv boxes. Three TVs run off one box and 2 off of the other.

gramarrows, I would not be able to ignore it, it would bug me every time I went into the room. I'm sure we will figure out something that will be pleasing, to us anyway.

monica, thanks for the suggestion re the RF remote. In one of our previous homes we had a RF eye installed on the wall that signaled the cable box in the family room, but that was all wired before the drywall was installed. .

Rose, I'm the same way, the least little minuscule thing that would not bother

most people, would eventually drive me mad. I don't or won't rest until I come

up with a solution to fix the problem. My hubby's best friend calls me 'the

princess and the pea' cause he thinks I'm so fussy. However, I rather think I'm

an extremely detail oriented person instead of fussy. :) Fortunately for me, my

hubby is like a dog on a bone, he'll work on stuff until it's perfect.

Keep at it, you'll find the solution to your problem, sometimes it takes awhile.

No rest for the weary. :)

Joann, you must be my sister from another mother!

haaaa, happy to know that I don't have to suffer in silence;

I'm not alone!

People might not need TVs anymore, but I doubt that they are going to disappear.

We have always had one in our Master bedroom (married 46 years, with children, still love each other). There are many nights that I will go into the bedroom to watch a show that my husband isn't interested in. He can watch hours of nature shows on NatGeo in the family room, I like my junk- Scandal.

I don't follow most sports closely, but I do enjoy watching when athletes are doing their best. Be it figure skating, hockey, tennis or golf. The idea of watching The Master's on a laptop just isn't appealing. Or having the grandkids over for a Movie Night in front of a computer screen isn't going to happen here.

good luck RoseAbbey hope you find a solution.

I too wouldn't want to watch a movie on a laptop. I like a "home cinematic experience", complete with 65" tv and external surround speakers. I think there are still countless people who would agree.

Anne, just wanted to say that I have both the TV and the fan on to go to sleep (the tv goes off by itself- on a timer).

I watch movies on a laptop when I travel , but when I'm home, why? I like my 65" of HD!

Rose, sorry I don't have a solution for you other than feeding the wires into the wall behind the TV.

I actually like the second, light frame you posted. But there are so many options for hiding the tv...if you can figure out hiding the wires.

This is a motorized panel that moves a picture up out of the way:

I think we might just buy a smart TV instead of trying to hook up cable boxes/apple tV or trying to tie into the family room TV. We already subscribe to Netflix and have wifi in our house so would we not just have to plug in the smart TV, get into our wifi to access netflix and call it a day, or am I missing some steps?

No, you are not missing anything. Smart TVs have come a long way. Another option would be to get a regular TV and get a Roku. It is a very tiny box and you can velcro it to the back of the TV. It usually has many more channel options than a Smart TV does. If you go that route, get the Roku 3 or 4, they are leaps and bounds better than any of the other Roku's available.

Thanks sbcichocki, will look into that too.

Sorry to highjack but I would love to learn more about Roku (preferably in relatively non-tech-savvy terms). We have UVerse and I hate that we pay $200 a month for what seems like basic channels (oh, I think we get Showtime now) and scads of channels playing nonstop infomercial crap. Can someone suggest an unbiased educational site to learn more? Or if ok with the OP to share here, I'd appreciate that too.

We have two smart TVs and one HD.

We've never had a TV in our bedroom, but it's something to which I'm looking forward in our new house. We're planning a medium-sized built-in unit that'll include drawers (for clothes) underneath, a good-sized TV in the middle, and shelves for books, etc. on the sides. This plan evolved because I want some drawers, but I don't want a dresser top. My husband and I are awful about allowing clutter to sneak in and become a junk pile on a dresser top.

As for whether TVs are a good idea in the bedroom, I have to disagree. Just as guns don't kill people, TVs don't wreck communication. These things are tools and can be used well or can be used badly. My husband and I enjoy watching TV together, and the location from which we watch it doesn't matter much. I'm also remembering going to stay with my mom when she was recovering from a surgery; I bought all three seasons of "Call the Midwife", and the two of us hung out on her bed watching that show, and we agreed that between every episode she had to get up and/or do her short exercises. It was an enjoyable way to pass those "sick days", and since I'm planning a house for my retirement years, setting up our room in this same way seems like a good idea to me.

Do we still watch TV? Of course! We've occasionally watched a show on our laptops, but I can't say it's that enjoyable. You have to get yourself "fixed just right" so the screen's at a good angle, and then the sound's not so good. That's more of a solitary activity, whereas we enjoy watching movies and TV together. Also, all of us wear glasses (and my eyes seem to be going downhill fast), so the tiny screen is less than ideal.

Where I think TVs solidly do not belong is in children's rooms; they definitely affect kids' sleep habits. Moreover, parents need to be able to monitor what kids are watching, and this technology is making this more and more difficult today. I've been teaching high school for more than two decades, and I'm sad to say that today's students are much more worldly /much less innocent than those of the past -- and part of this is that they're pretty much all watching things (and reading things) that are too mature for teens. Another negative is that soooo many of my students (and I should note that two of my three classes are low-achieving students) don't know how to simply be still and quiet within themselves. Every down-moment must be filled with music or other entertainment; they think they can listen to music while reading. They don't remove ear buds while talking to one another (or me), which seems impossibly rude. They are literally addicted. I noted it, too, recently when my younger daughter and I drove up to see my oldest in her college town. We went out to lunch, and I noted that in a busy restaurant we were literally the only people NOT using our cell phones during the meal. Keeping TVs out of bedrooms is just one step in keeping your children away from screen addiction.

The one time I prefer watching a movie on my laptop is when it has subtitles. I'm farsighted and wear monovision contacts. It works well for me in most situations, but sustained reading from the couch to the TV screen gets tedious real fast.

I agree with mrspete re TVs in kids' rooms. I fought that one long and hard with my daughter, and ultimately lost (my husband/her dad was less concerned), but at least I staved off the inevitable for a couple of years. It's not just the content of the shows but the tendency to isolate from the rest of the family.

I can answer some basic questions about Roku, if that is ok with the OP.

I have a subscription to Netflix and Amazon Prime. Both streaming services are on the Roku. Hulu (paid) is also available on it, but I don't have that. I know a lot of cord cutters get Netflix and Hulu and seem to be very happy with them. So for the both of them it's around $25 a month together. Lots cheaper than most cable. We keep our basic cable (very basic) only because we also get internet through our cable company, and if we cancel the TV part they bump up the price of the internet side almost exactly the same amount. So we just keep the basic TV.

I also have smart TVs. The advantage of the Roku over the TVs is that there are many free channels available on the Roku that are not available on the smart TVs. For example: Home Channel (decorating) Design network, HGTV, Craft Smart, Looney Toon Network (cartoons), Pandora (music) tubittv (old movies), PBS, PBS Kids, many of the news channels have news update channels, iHeartRadio (music) Smithsonian Channel, Crackle (older TV, movies) There are also TONS of other channels that are subscription based. For example, if you love British TV there is a channel called Acorn. I have no idea the monthly cost, but it is there. Honestly every time I check it seems like there are more and more channels added.

I do love my Rokus. I have 3. Guest bedroom, Master bedroom, and Living room. I will say if you are going to get one don't get the cheap ones. They have less memory, so fewer channels can be added. I have the Roku 3, but I got them before the Roku 4 came out. Oh, and do know that many of these 'free' channels do have commercials. They don't bother me, but I know commercials bother some people.

Guess that's about all I know! Hope that helps!

S

sbcichocki, thanks so much for the info. DH wants to get a smart TV so that is what we will do, less hassle he says. It really doesnt matter to me so we will go with that. Since we already have Netflix we will stick with that for this TV.

Seeing exposed TV wires when I entered my bedroom would bug me too. Since it's your master bedroom and not a public space you really only need to satisfy your personal aesthetic concerns, so why not go with the frame, it's attractive and solves the problem simply and effectively.

Ingrid, I don't think you should apologize or feel regretful! You posted an opinion, based on what a lot of psychologists and therapists do espouse---I've heard that advice about tv sets in bedrooms as well. It generally fits with the 'bedroom is for two purposes only' theory. Obviously folks have different viewpoints but it doesn't mean we can't express our own ;).

I've never had a tv in my bedroom, just because it wouldn't be worth it for *me*. In our household we watch: local/network news daily (husband and me), HGTV and a couple of Bravo shows (me). That's it, that's all. I need to figure out how to get out from under UVerse because like TR I'm paying for hundreds of channels I never, ever watch. We have a smart tv, as does my 24-YO daughter, and she has no cable service at all, instead using Netflix, Amazon etc. to watch what she wants. She just texted me this weekend that HBO now has a monthly charge to get it and she's going to pay that; IIRC it is <$10.

Anyway my original purpose for responding is to share a great post on how someone set up a beautifully streamlined, mounted-on-wall, no-wires-showing television. Yep, it's Young House Love to the rescue again! This post shows the genius of that couple; a cost effective decorating tutorial using materials that aren't expensive but which end up looking fantastic, complete with step by step how to directions that a reasonably handy person could actually do--or that a reasonably flush person could actually hire a handyman to do LOL.

I'm betting a lot of these therapist and psychologists dont follow their own advice.

Thanks for the link.

runninginplace, thank you for the kind words. My intentions were good, but my judgment obviously was not. I'm still embarrassed about this incident.

RoseAbbey, I agree. Some therapists I know (not professionally) are the ones truly in need of therapy.

Everyone who watched Trading Spaces remembers Hildy's horrendous wall treatments. I once saw an article about her own house and it was all white inside. Um, yeah.

Ingrid, no worries, all is good.

Wow $200 for tv? That's more than we paid for our satellite service. We bought an HD antenna - I believe that's what it's called - one that goes in the attic and we were surprised by how many local/area stations we can get. We can get movies, etc. from Amazon Prime, although we've never tried that. We have Hulu. Also have the amazon firestick. I'm sure it would depend on how much you watch. Running, for no more than you watch you could go a whole lot cheaper.

The $200 we pay is actually for TV, internet, and landline (yes, we still have one) - all bundled together. Getting rid of the landline saves us nothing (we don't really need it), but trying to unbundle our services to delete certain things actually ends up costing us more. It's insane.

I am just about to get rid of my landline. I pay 25 plus tax every month. I just ordered and received the ooma.

We still have a landline also and many people have that number. Also here, for 911 service, on the chance (and I know it's a small one - but) you could get to the phone - they track you. (ie if you weren't able to speak, etc.). So that's an advantage.

"Watching TV with your partner is not really a sharing thing but rather it hinders communication"

I am not so sure I agree with that. If you watch something together, you are sharing that experience. Then you usually discuss it, don't you?

Tina, you get 911 service with Ooma, and also you can keep your own number,

Mtn, we never watch anything together in silence. My DH is very talkative, sometimes I wish he was quiet,,,lol

Thanks Rose. I didn't know what Ooma was. LOL I'm fine with our landline and answering machine. I'd really rather most of our calls come to it.

ETA - how much is the Ooma service? (If you don't mind me asking.)

You buy the machine, it cost me 99.00, plus I bought the wifi adapter 49. 00. The monthly fee varies, you only pay the taxes, ours will be under $4 a month.

For those of you with (or considering) Smart TVs, take a look at this article: http://www.cnet.com/news/samsungs-warning-our-smart-tvs-record-your-living-room-chatter/

One of my students brought it in when we were reading the novel 1984, and I was shocked. Apparently these TVs not only record what's said in your living room, they sell it to third parties. Of course, they're doing it for marketing purposes, but it could become even more nefarious. VERY 1984.

Of course, my students were more shocked by the fact that our cell phones monitor exactly where we've been (even providing a map and time stamps!). When that student presented his article, it led to the whole class pulling out phones ... they were all in a tizzy to "shut down" that feature on their phones.

Thanks for the tip mrspete!

We have sourced a cabinet maker to make our frame for our TV, so should be getting that done in the next couple of months. In looking for designs I came across this website where that is all they do is disguise TVs. Guess there is a business for everything.

http://framemytv.com

Can't wait to see what they come up with. Very cool website.