Why I Love Having a TV in the Bedroom
For the first 13 years of our marriage, we didn’t have a TV in our bedroom.
It was always in the living room or family room.
And then we moved into our last house in 2017, and there was no good place to put a TV in the living room. The living room was open on two sides, had a massive window on one side and a fireplace on the fourth side.
I’m sure some people would have mounted the TV above the fireplace, but I didn’t want it to be the focal point of the living room, plus the furniture didn’t fit in a way that made it work to have the TV the focal point.
We put one TV in the basement playroom and the other went in our bedroom.
And to my surprise, I LOVE having a TV in our bedroom. In our new house, we did the same – put one TV in the basement playroom for family movie nights and put the other one in our bedroom, with no television in our main living room.
Here’s why I’ve loved it so much:
In our previous homes, if we wanted to watch a show in the evenings after the girls went to bed, we would plop down on the couch and watch together.
And then, by the time it was over, we were exhausted and the idea of getting up off the couch, brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, and taking out contacts all sounded like SO MUCH EFFORT.
And so instead we’d be much more likely to watch another episode or just sit on the couch scrolling on our phones to put off the hassle of getting ready for bed.
Once our TV was in our bedroom, if we want to watch a show at night, we both get fully ready for bed – teeth brushed, face washed, house shut down for the night, etc.
Then once we’re done watching, it’s literally as easy as turning off the TV, switching on the sound machine and switching off the lights. Ready for bed!
It kind of feels like magic and it’s a great wind-down to the day instead of pushing our bedtime later than we want. It’s much much easier to turn off a movie or show part way through when there isn’t a hurdle between you and going to sleep (it’s very rare that we watch even a full episode of something in a single evening – we usually watch maybe 15-20 minutes).
I know that lots of people feel STRONGLY that their quality of life is decreased by having a TV in their bedroom or that it disrupts their sleep or has other negative consequences and if that’s the case for you, by all means keep the TV out of your bedroom!
But for us, a TV in the bedroom has meant fewer late nights and more sleep, so I’m calling it a huge win.
And not having a big black square on the wall of our living room is definitely an extra bonus.
This is great! I’m with you on having a tv in the master bedroom. It keeps our toddler from staring at the screen, prevents us from watching tv while we eat, and generally reduces the temptation to binge watch shows.
The only thing I have to remember is to watch tv earlier in the night so I don’t go to bed wired and thinking about the show I just watched.
How often do you sit down as a family and watch tv/ a movie in the family room? Do you have a ritual?
We pretty much only watch as a family on Friday nights.
Same! I was anti TV in master for years. Finally I said I don’t want a TV in the family room so my compromise was to put it in my room for my husband. There are nights when we don’t agree on if we want to watch it not but taking the TV out the family room has been the best decision of my life. My kids only ask for TV when we are there. They know they can’t sit on our bed and watch TV whenever they want. It is decreased the number of times my kid has asked for a show by a thousand times. The only way I let another TV in the family room was the Samsung frame TV. That big black box is too much of a temptation. With a picture screen my kids still don’t ask. It’s fascinating.