Living Room TV Mounting in Lexington, KY: Which Wall

Part of our complete guide: How to Mount a TV on Any Wall.

The living room is the room we are called to most, and it is the one where the decision is least obvious. Bedrooms and offices more or less tell you where the screen goes. A living room usually offers two candidate walls, and they are rarely the same wall: the one the room was designed around, and the one the furniture actually faces.

1. The Two Walls Every Living Room Offers

The first wall is the architectural one — the fireplace, the chimney breast, the recess the builder clearly intended something to sit in. The second is wherever the sofa is pointing, which in a lot of Lexington houses is ninety degrees away from the first. The room was arranged around a view, a door, or where the sun is not, and the television was an afterthought.

We start by asking people to sit down where they actually sit and look at both walls. One of them will have the screen at a comfortable height, in reach of power, and out of the window's path. That is usually the answer, even when it is not the handsome wall. Our viewing height and placement guide is the measurement half of this; everything below is the room half.

2. Height Is Measured From the Sofa, Not the Floor Plan

The single most common thing we are called out to correct is a screen mounted too high. It happens because the installer measured from the floor, or matched a photograph, instead of sitting in the chair. The middle of the picture wants to be close to eye level from the main seat, which is lower than nearly everyone expects.

Seat height matters more than ceiling height. A deep sectional you sink into and a firm sofa you perch on put your eyes several inches apart, and a recliner moves them again when it goes back. Measure from where your head ends up on a normal evening, not from a tape held against the wall.

3. Sectionals and Corner Seating

A sectional changes the geometry, because half the seats are no longer square to the screen. Tilt does not fix this. Tilt corrects a vertical angle; the problem with the short arm of an L-shaped sofa is horizontal, and the only two cures are moving the screen along the wall or letting it swing.

That is the one case in a living room where a full-motion mount genuinely earns its price, and it is also where the 32–55" limit on ours matters — above 55", the honest answer is to choose the wall more carefully instead. If the screen is heading into an actual corner rather than onto a flat wall, our guide to corner TV mounting covers what holds and what only looks like it will.

4. Afternoon Light Decides More Than People Expect

Glare is a geometry problem, and mounting day is the last cheap chance to solve it. A wall that looks perfect at ten in the morning can be unwatchable at six in the evening, and most living rooms are used in the evening. Go and stand in the room at the hour you actually watch television before you commit to a wall.

A west-facing window behind the seating puts the sun straight into the panel; a window opposite the screen reflects the room back at you. Moving the screen a couple of feet along the wall, or a few degrees of tilt, often does more than any curtain. Our guide to reducing TV glare and screen reflections goes through how to judge it.

5. The Fireplace Question, Answered Honestly

Above the mantel is the most requested position in the room and the least comfortable one. The screen ends up high, and on a working fireplace there is heat to account for as well. We will not pretend otherwise just because the wall is the obvious one.

There are two honest ways to make it work. The first is to accept a slightly high screen on a tilting mount in a room where the fireplace genuinely is the only wall. The second is a pull-down mount, which brings the screen down to eye level when it is in use, provided the wall behind can carry the extra leverage. Our guides to mounting on a brick fireplace and to heat and airflow behind a mounted TV cover the masonry and the temperature sides of it.

6. Where the Boxes and the Cables End Up

Once the screen is on the wall, everything that plugs into it needs a home. A cable box, a console, a streaming stick and a soundbar each have a sensible answer, and the answer changes depending on whether any furniture survives under the screen. Our guide to where the cable box goes with a mounted TV covers the four places they can live.

Every install includes basic cable management. If you want nothing visible at all, in-wall cable concealment is a $99 add-on: power and signal run inside the wall with proper plates and low-voltage brackets, and the existing outlet is extended into the chase on a UL-listed in-wall rated cord kit, so there is no new circuit and no electrician. A painted surface raceway is the alternative where the wall cannot be opened, and we quote that once we have seen it. Our guide to hiding TV wires in the wall explains the chase itself.

7. What the Wall Itself Will Take

Most Lexington living rooms are drywall over wood studs, which is the easy case: lag bolts into the centre of two studs and the mount is stronger than the television. The complications are the ones the room hides. A chimney breast is masonry. Houses around downtown and in the older neighbourhoods often have plaster and lath. A former garage or a bumped-out addition can be anything at all.

We check what is behind the surface before drilling — studs, and also the wiring, pipes and ducts that live in the same cavity. Our guides to what is behind your wall, plaster and lath and drywall where the studs miss the spot cover the three cases that come up most in this room.

Pricing

Installation is priced by screen size: 32" $129, 43" $129, 50" $129, 55" $129, 65" $139, 75" $229 and 85" $279. Every installation covers mounting the TV, leveling, basic cable management, and all wall hardware. The mount itself is separate — flat $35, tilting $45, full-motion $125 (32–55") — or bring your own and we will fit it at no mount charge. In-wall cable concealment is $99, soundbar mounting is $40 and hauling the old set away is $30. Service within 20 miles of Lexington is free. Richmond is our home base, so it is free too.

If you are undecided between two walls, say so when you call and tell us the room and the screen size. Deciding that in the doorway with you takes a couple of minutes and it is the part of the job that you live with afterwards. If you have not settled on mounting it at all, our comparison of a wall mount against a TV stand is the place to start, and if a screen already on the wall looks crooked, a TV that is not level explains why that usually is not the bracket's fault.