We are in a rental home right now too, so I understand your dilemma. Ours came furnished, though, which made things a bit simpler. The room layout is somewhat similar to your photos. The owner has the flatscreen on top of a wide, low wood credenza piece in front of the windows. I never would have thought to put it there, but in the room, it works. She has a full size sofa and a loveseat in an L-shape to view the TV, but a sectional in an L-shape would work fine too.

Putting the TV in front of the windows will only work if you don't get full sun streaming in, of course. We are in pretty deep woods, so it is fine. The cable boxes sit on the credenza, TV doesn't have to be screwed into the wall (it has little legs on it), and there is an outlet on the wall (to which she's added a strip because of all the cords), so no changes made to the house. There are pull-down roller shades behind the TV on the rare occasions where there is too much sun coming in, we can pull those down. This may not work for you, but I thought I'd mention it, just in case!

If this won't work, I'd put it on the wall opposite the window.

What about something like this. Don't like the idea of covering such beautiful windows/light source with a TV.

Thank you both. Great points.

I do like the idea you have drawn up @robasks. I would then need to add some seating in front of the fireplace though so it isnt floating alone.

@Emily I might see how the light is. I know the outdoor space is south-facing so gets sun.

Option 2 from my list above is currently seeming like a viable one also - the TV opposite the fireplace with two sofas between them.

I just ignore the fireplace when I'm furnishing a rental. It's usually in an awkward place and without it the furniture can be arranged in a reasonable way that we're happy with.

If you rented this place because you loved the fireplace, that's a different story. But if you picked this place for other reasons and it happened to have a fireplace then I'd vote for largely disregarding the fireplace in your furniture layout decisions. Depending on the size of your sofa and the room, this may mean basically turning the back or side of the sofa to the fireplace or otherwise orienting the furniture so that none of it relates to the fireplace. This fireplace in particular would work well for that type of solution because it's completely flat-faced with no mantle or fireplace surround which makes it particularly easy to hide it.

@F Butler : I do think that would be the best option (#2) but would like to know what would you put behind the sofas? The desk?

@robasks thank you for taking the time to help me with this. I would put the desk or a small bookcase along the wall where your diagram shows the TV table. I would put a playpen where you show the sofa.

Let us know how you end up setting it up in the end with pictures!