The TV is the first thing guests notice when they walk into your lounge. The stand beneath it is the second. Get the stand wrong and it does not matter how good the rest of your furniture is — the room will feel unresolved.
Most South Africans spend weeks choosing a sofa and ten minutes choosing a TV stand. This guide is an attempt to fix that.
Size Is Not Optional
A TV stand that is narrower than your screen looks unstable. One that sits too high pushes your eyes upward all evening. These are not aesthetic preferences — they are ergonomic problems that will quietly irritate you every time you sit down to watch something.
The practical rule: your stand should be at least as wide as your TV, and the screen centre should sit at roughly eye level when you are seated. For most South African sofas, that means a stand height of 45 to 55 cm.
| TV Size | Recommended Stand Width | Stand Height | Viewing Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 43–50 inch | 110 – 130 cm | 45 – 50 cm | 1.8 – 2.5 m |
| 55–65 inch | 140 – 170 cm | 45 – 55 cm | 2.3 – 3.0 m |
| 70–75 inch | 175 – 200 cm | 50 – 55 cm | 2.8 – 3.5 m |
Viewing distances above are recommended for 4K UHD televisions. For 1080p screens, add approximately 50% to the distances shown.
If your room cannot accommodate that width on the floor, a wall-mounted unit is not a compromise — it is often the better solution. The Modern Floating LED TV Stand TV-12 at R1,509 removes the stand from the floor entirely, which makes smaller rooms feel larger and eliminates the cleaning problem that comes with furniture legs.
Your Room Already Has a Finish. Match It.
Walk into your living room and look at what already exists: your flooring, your sofa legs, your coffee table, your light fittings. There is almost certainly a dominant finish — warm timber, matte black metal, white or grey painted surfaces. Your TV stand should belong to that same family.
This sounds obvious. It is surprising how often it gets ignored.
Picture a Friday evening. The overhead lights are off, a floor lamp is on, and the room has settled into the version of itself that you actually live in rather than the version you show visitors. In that light, a TV stand in the wrong finish does not just look wrong — it looks like it belongs to a different house.
Warm timber floors and neutral upholstery call for something with wood grain and texture. The Rustic TV Stand TV-JY02 at R1,250 works in this context because it reads as part of the room rather than a piece of technology furniture dropped into it.
Contemporary open-plan spaces with polished concrete, large-format tiles or light oak flooring tend to suit cleaner lines and integrated lighting. The Smart TV Stand with LED Lights TV-11 at R1,603 handles this well — the built-in LED strip changes how the wall behind the TV reads in the evening, which softens the contrast between a dark screen and a lit room. It is a small detail that makes a disproportionate difference.
Open-Plan Living and the Problem of Sight Lines
South African homes have moved decisively toward open-plan layouts over the past decade. The kitchen, dining area and lounge flow into each other, which is wonderful for entertaining and genuinely difficult for furniture placement.
The TV wall in an open-plan home is visible from multiple angles simultaneously. From the kitchen, you see the back of the stand. From the dining table, you see the side. From the sofa, you see the front. A unit with open shelving and no back panel exposes every cable, every device and every layer of accumulated dust from all three directions. The fix is straightforward: choose a stand with a solid back panel, or go wall-mounted and keep everything flush against the surface.
On Cables
You will have cables. A decoder, a soundbar, a streaming device, a gaming console — each one adds another wire. Before buying any stand, check for cable management channels in the back panel.
The TV Stand Media Console TV-17 Berlin Rustic at R1,107 addresses this with a combination of open shelving for daily-use devices and closed cabinet storage for everything else. It is the most practical option if you have multiple devices and want the setup to look considered rather than accumulated.
When the Screen Is the Problem
A 75-inch television is a significant object. The instinct is to minimise the stand — to choose something low-profile that draws as little attention as possible. This is usually the wrong call. A large screen needs visual anchoring. A stand that is too slight makes the TV look like it is floating in the room without context.
The Industrial TV Stand for 75-Inch TV at R1,929 is built for exactly this. The metal frame and wood shelving combination has enough visual weight to anchor a large screen without making the room feel heavy. In family rooms where the entertainment setup is the deliberate focal point, this is the right choice.
Five Questions Worth Asking Before You Buy
Most people walk into a decision about a TV stand with a rough idea of what they want and a vague sense of their budget. These five questions will sharpen that considerably.
How wide is your TV, and how much wall space do you actually have? Measure both before you look at a single product. A stand that looks proportionate in a showroom photograph may overwhelm a narrow lounge wall or look undersized against a feature wall with high ceilings.
What are you storing, and how often do you need to access it? A decoder you touch once a month can go behind a closed door. A gaming console you use daily needs to be on an open shelf. Getting this wrong means either a cluttered surface or a cabinet you are constantly opening and closing.
Is the room open-plan? If yes, the back and sides of your stand are as visible as the front. This rules out open-shelving units with no back panel unless you are prepared to manage cables meticulously from every angle.
What finish dominates the room? Not what you wish the room looked like — what it actually looks like today. Your TV stand needs to work with the room as it is, not as it might be after a future renovation.
Are you buying for now or for the next five years? If you are likely to upgrade to a larger screen, buy a stand with more width than you currently need. A 65-inch TV on a stand sized for a 55-inch looks wrong immediately. A 65-inch TV on a stand sized for a 75-inch looks considered.
The Furniture You Stop Noticing
There is a version of interior design that is about statement pieces — the sofa that stops conversation, the light fitting that everyone asks about. The TV stand is almost never that piece, and it should not try to be.
The best TV stand is the one you stop noticing after a week. It holds the screen at the right height. It stores your devices without showing the cables. It sits within the finish language of the rest of your room without demanding attention. It makes the room feel complete rather than assembled.
That is a harder brief than it sounds. But it is the right one.
See the full range at ArtisanSA TV Stands and Media Units.
