I often get asked how I hid the large dark niche above our fireplace — the spot builders typically design for a television.
If you’re wondering why we didn’t mount a TV there, here are the reasons. First, the fireplace is mounted quite high, nearly five feet up. Our sofa sits facing the right wall, so watching a screen that high would force us to crane our necks up and to the side — not comfortable for movies. Second, I love styling the mantel, and a TV limits how I can decorate. With the TV nearly as wide as the mantel, there was little room for layered vignettes. And if we hid the TV behind decor, removing those items every time we wanted to watch would be inconvenient.
We placed the TV directly across from the sofa on the right wall, so viewing is straight-on and comfortable. I’ll share more about that setup in another post.
So how did I cover that black hole? You’ve seen this mantel before; the “shutters” are actually painted cabinet doors I removed from my kitchen to create open shelving. They do sound nicer as shutters, and they were the perfect size to hide the entire niche without appearing oversized or awkward.
From the side you can see the cabinet doors simply lean against the wall. They’re tall enough to stay in place, and I didn’t fasten them to the wall — the arrangement is intentionally nonpermanent.
I used three doors, with the middle one overlapping the two side doors. That configuration felt balanced to my eye. I hadn’t planned this project in advance, so the two white doors aren’t identical in size. The colored center door helps create visual symmetry and hides those small differences.
There’s an outlet inside the niche, as shown in the before photo. That makes it easy to plug in lamps or string lights: an extension cord can be tucked behind the shutters and plugged in without fuss. The nonpermanent nature of this solution means I can change things easily.
Because I like to update my decor seasonally, I’ve swapped the center door from blue to green and sometimes replace it with a mirror for a cozier fall and winter look. I plan to make a couple of extra center doors to rotate with the seasons. This approach offers a lot of flexibility and keeps the mantel fresh throughout the year.
Here are a few of the ways the mantel has been styled:
Winter version with mirror and wreath
Summer mantel with blue shutter
Fall mantel with wreath hung on the green shutter
Christmas mantel
Before and after: the niche transformed
If you’re curious about the wall paint, the original post lists the paint colors.
I hope this explains my simple, adaptable solution for hiding the fireplace niche.