Today, let’s talk about what is probably the least glamorous item in your entire family room – your cable box. Most of us have them and when out in the open, let’s face it, they’re kind of an eyesore.
This post won’t apply to a lot of you, I’m sure. My parents, for example, house their TV components in a gorgeous, hand-painted armoire that, when closed, prettily hides all the wires and boxes. I’ve seen a lot of bloggers rehab old dressers to make gorgeous TV credenzas that also hide all those unsightly little boxes away.
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A solution like this wasn’t going to work for us, though, because we opted to mount the TV to the wall above the fireplace. We had the components wired remotely so we could house them on an open bookshelf nearby, but then I was left with the little issue of six component boxes, what looked like a billion wires, and one very untidy-looking bookshelf.
With some purposeful arranging, however, the TV component boxes and wires are practically invisible.
Here are some general tips for hiding your TV component boxes right out in the open:
- Use a tall bookshelf – the eye naturally goes to the middle and high shelves, which you can reserve for decorative objects.
- Place any TV component boxes on the lower shelves.
- Use larger component boxes – usually cable boxes and Bluray/DVD players – as bases for books or other decorative objects.
- Disguise smaller component boxes, like Sonos controllers or Apple TV boxes, by using them in a stack of smaller books and/or placing a pretty object on top.
- Bundle wires together and hide them behind a framed photograph/print or a decorative plate.
Look how hard the bottom two shelves of this bookshelf are working!
But when you look at the bookshelf, your eye is drawn to the shelves closer to eye level and really only registers the items on those.
Even from afar, the bookshelf as a whole comes off looking more like a collection of pretty objects than a hard-working media center.
Do you have a clever way of disguising TV components in your house? Share them in the comments if you do! This is one of those things that has a million different solutions based on how your TV is oriented, and we can all piece together the solutions that work best for us!
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perfectly hidden! i would love to hide ours better but it’s on the top shelf of our shelves because otherwise we have a hard time hitting it with the remote!
Our new cable box can be controlled from anywhere – even from another room. You never have to point the remote at it, so that made that one pretty easy to work with!
Sounds like a great idea, but the equipment needs to vent, and putting stuff on top of them will prevent them from venting, making them hot and they won’t work as well and won’t last as long.
Very true – I should have mentioned that the boxes I used underneath other items have their vents on the sides so they can still cool down properly. Thanks for bringing this up, though!
I would love to be able to do this. I’ll be switching cable providers soon since I’m moving out of state. Let’s hope that their boxes have the vents on the side so that I can do this. It just makes so much more sense! By the way, love your blog. Keep up the good work.
Thanks so much, Idainia!
I kinda wish we could just live without all the ugly technology stuff. ;) Let’s just read………said the girl who’s addicted to about 12 different television shows. ha!
I know what you mean…but then…whaaaat? Give up my DVR?! I do kind of prefer reading though :)
Wow! I never would have noticed anything but the modem, cable box and phone if you hadn’t pointed them out! That’s awesome!
Awesome – glad my trickery worked :)
love it! you would never notice it unless you really studied your shelf!
That’s what I’m hoping – that most people walking by won’t really be studying!
You managed to completely make it disappear to the eye. It’s awesome!
Thanks, sweets!
You’re right, I don’t think I would have noticed those things if you hadn’t pointed them out!
Great idea! You don’t even notice them!