TV over fireplace, yay or nay?

[Anonymous]

So can you run your fireplace while the tv is pulled down on the mantle mount?

Once we had a small apartment and we actually put the TV inside the fireplace (okay, it was a nonfunctional fireplace from the 1920's). This was many years ago before flat screen TVs.

We have a very small family room ("den" as it was called in this 1960 house). Anyway, it has a fireplace and a window and we still have room for a big screen TV which spans across the corner of two walls (on top of an a long bench that we found online). Of course we had to use a small sectional sofa as the only piece of seating furniture, but we have no problem watching TV at the right level. It all looks fine. But there are no rules for this. Just do whatever you like.