11 Practical Ways to Hide Speakers in a Living Room

How to hide speakers in a living room.

Speakers can turn a living room into a dynamic entertainment hub. They help create a space where you can enjoy a full-bodied audio experience from your favorite music, movies, or video games.

But, incorporating speakers into a living room can be tricky.

Some take up a lot of space, while others can throw off a room’s décor. Some of them will even trigger those “colorful” discussions with your better half.

So, how do you create your dream soundstage in your living room without sacrificing the look and feel of it?

The answer is simple: just hide them!

Find a way to blend your speakers into your room’s design so the two complement each other.

It’s a good compromise that keeps everyone happy. Plus, you won’t have to relocate and reconfigure them for another room.

In this article, I’ll give you 11 creative ways to effectively hide speakers in a living room so you can enjoy all the benefits of great sound without sacrificing space, style… or your marriage.

How to Hide Speakers in a Living Room

To hide speakers in your living room, use simple strategies like placing them inside decorative baskets or under fabric covers that blend with your décor. 

Consider wireless options to avoid messy wires, and consider getting creative, like customizing wooden crates or using room dividers as a temporary option.

Here are 11 ways to hide your speakers that work.

1. Hide Speakers in a Woven Basket with Plants

If you or your spouse likes having greenery in your living room, you can put your speakers in a woven basket and use fake plants to hide them. You can set the basket on a shelf, inside your TV stand, or just sit it on the floor next to it if there’s enough space.

Hiding speakers in a living room with woven baskets.

When hiding your speakers inside a basket: 

  • Make sure the basket is large enough to hold your speaker and plant. 
  • For wired speakers, make sure there’s enough room between the weaves to run the wires through.
  • Put a piece of acoustic foam or some kind of cloth around the sides and back of the basket to limit reverberation.  

If you position your speaker correctly and have enough room between the plant and the speaker, you shouldn’t experience any issues with sound quality.

2. Cover Speakers with Acoustic Fabric or a Thin Blanket

One of the easiest ways to hide speakers without losing sound quality is to cover them with acoustic fabric. This lightweight fabric is designed to let sound waves pass through without distortion. It’s the same material commonly used on the front of speakers to help protect the drivers from collecting dust.

It comes in all kinds of colors, so you should be able to match the fabric to your room’s color scheme and style.

An image showing a close-up view of speaker fabric.

You can find a lot of nice options online, but if you’re in a time crunch and need a quick solution, you can use a blanket instead. Just make sure the material is lightweight and thin enough, so it doesn’t muffle the sound from your speakers.

You won’t want to remove it every time you use the speakers.

I’d recommend something with the same thickness as a throw blanket.

3. Customize a Wooden Crate to Conceal Speakers

If you’re feeling creative and want a DIY idea, you can hide your speakers in a custom-designed wooden crate. I’m not talking about painting a crate and just placing your speakers inside it. You’ll have to adjust the crate so the sound accuracy doesn’t take a hit.

Here are some things to consider when using a wooden crate to hide speakers:

The Size of the Crate

Make sure the crate is the right size for your speakers. Standard crates are typically 9-12 inches deep, and you’ll want to have at least 1-2 inches of space between your speaker and the crate itself.

This idea won’t work for every speaker but they’re good for hiding smaller bookshelf speakers or if you have satellite speakers on a back shelf.

The Nuances of Sound Inside a Wooden Crate

Every speaker is unique, and the placement of speakers plays a massive role in how they perform. Because of this, you’ll have to experiment with the placement and which speakers you cover with crates.

A wooden crate that can be used to hide speakers in a living room.

If it doesn’t work as expected, you can always remove the crate when you want to use your speaker. This will at least keep them hidden until you’re ready to use them again.

Modifying the Wooden Crate for Your Speakers

  1. Select a Front and Back: Pick two sides to be the front and back, based on your speaker position. Cut these two sides out and try to leave a ½” edge. 
  2. Prepare the Front: Smooth the front edge by sanding it to remove any splinters.
  3. Add Speaker Fabric or a Speaker Screen: Next, add an acoustic fabric or speaker screen that matches your style and secure it to the edge. To secure it tightly, I’d recommend using contact cement or a fabric adhesive.
  4. Ventilation: Leave the back open to allow air to flow freely into the crate. This will keep your speaker from overheating.
  5. Add Acoustic Foam:  Since wood is a resonant material, sound waves can make the crate vibrate. To help with this, line the sides and top of the crate’s interior with acoustic foam.
  6. Test Sound Quality: Position your speaker and place the crate on top. Try playing music with and without the crate to hear how the sound changes.

You can find new wooden crates at most home goods stores, but for a more eco-friendly approach, search for someone in your local area giving away old ones.

Older crates look really nice if your living room has an industrial vibe to it or if you have a more vintage look.

Use your imagination and infuse it with your own personal style. This makes for a unique piece in your living room that packs a punch and will surprise your guests.

4. Clean Up Your Speaker Wires

You’d be amazed at how much of a difference just hiding speaker wires can make in the overall look of things in your room. Organization opens up more room space for your eyes so everything won’t look so cluttered. 

Even running wires behind furniture is a better option than leaving them out in the open. Here are some other ideas to hide speaker wires.

Cable Management

Use eye or cup hooks to run your wires through. You can also use cable staples to square up wires so they look more organized.

Run Wires Through Walls

Running your speaker wires through walls is the best way to give your room a cleaner look. But it does require a little more work.

For mounted speakers, you can do this by drilling a hole behind the speaker and another closer to the floor. Make sure you drill into an area between studs. Snake the wire down and make your connections on each end.

Using a hole saw to hide speaker wires through walls.

Tip: When making the openings in your walls or studs, use a hole saw for more accurate and cleaner cuts.

If your wires need to run horizontally, you can run them through the studs.This is a little more involved, but you’ll be happy you did it once it’s done.

To do this, cut your drywall and drill through each stud until you reach your connection point. Check your local building codes to know where to drill into the studs.

Generally, you should measure a spot to drill that’s at least 1-½” away from the wall-facing side of the studs. This will protect your cables from damage when you reinstall your drywall or if you decide to mount something else to the studs.

Use Wire Covers

Wire covers can attach to walls or run along your floor and are easy to use. All you need to do is snap them over your wires, and you’re good to go. Pick a color that matches your walls or floors, or paint them to match.

Add Raceway Molding

Raceway molding resembles crown molding, but there’s a difference. Inside the raceway molding is a hollow cavity where you can run your speaker wires.

It keeps them out of sight and protected like wire covers but gives your room a more natural look. If you don’t already have crown molding, this is an eye-pleasing upgrade to any room.

5. Replace Wired Speakers with Wireless Speakers

Every speakerhead has their take on wired vs. wireless speakers, but there’s no doubt using wireless speakers give you more flexibility when wanting to hide your speakers. This is because they don’t need to connect to a receiver, which makes them more portable than wired speakers. 

You can place them in less obvious locations and camouflage them anywhere throughout your room. 

KEF LSX II LT Wireless Active Bookshelf Speakers

Hide them behind books on a shelf, on top of a cabinet, on a recessed shelf, or inside a media console for smaller speakers. They open up more space in your room, making it look more organized—all while still providing a full and spacious sound.

6. Install In-Wall or In-Ceiling Speakers

You can install in-wall or in-ceiling speakers if you want a more permanent solution. These speakers are designed to sit flush against your walls or ceilings, making them virtually invisible to the untrained eye.

They’ll give your living room a cleaner, more professional look, and they aren’t a bad upgrade either. They’ll free up space on the floor and shelves and could be the beginning of a nice home theater system.

The speakers themselves are fairly easy to install, but running the wires can be tricky. Especially if you don’t have access above the walls. Unless you have experience doing this, I’d recommend getting them installed by a professional.

7. Build a False Wall

If your home theater system takes up too much space in your living room, you can hide your audio equipment behind a false wall.

Having speakers sit behind a false wall means you’ll have the freedom to add whatever acoustic treatments you want. Depending on what you add, this can lead to better sound isolation and bass response.

Plus, you’ll be able to direct sound exactly where you want it. This can be a blessing in disguise in larger rooms where the acoustics are hard to manage.

For the material of your false wall, it’s better to use a dark speaker fabric instead of drywall. This will hide your speakers well and keep their sound performance intact.

Build panels wrapped in the acoustic fabric and attach them in sections to your wall. Make sure you have some panels you can remove in case you want to upgrade your speakers later on.

If you want to take it a step further, you can replace your TV with an acoustically transparent screen… But that might be a conversation you save for down the road.

8. Hide Your Speakers Inside Cabinets

Hiding speakers can be as simple as just rethinking how you use everyday furniture. One area in living rooms where this works well is inside closed cabinets.

If you already have a media console with cabinet space large enough to fit your speakers, consider modifying the doors. 

You can do this by cutting out the center and replacing it with a perforated speaker screen or speaker cloth. This is an affordable way to keep your speakers hidden while giving your living room a stylish, more unique look. 

To do this:

  1. Remove the cabinet door and measure the face of your speaker. 
  2. Take your speaker measurement and outline an area in the center of your cabinet door.
  3. Using a jigsaw tool, carefully cut out the center of the door, following your outline. 
  4. Once the opening is made, attach a perforated metal speaker grill or mesh speaker cloth securely to the door.

The material is relatively inexpensive, but if you’re uncomfortable cutting your cabinet doors, it might be worth buying a new media console with built-in perforated cabinet doors.

A modern cabinet with acoustically transparent doors.

This is a more expensive option, but your speakers will be out of sight, and they’re specifically designed to allow sound to pass through and disperse it evenly. They’re great for surround sound systems or soundbars. Many of these media consoles feature a wider center shelf, which is nice if you prefer using soundbars and need a way to tuck it away.

Here are some extra tips for hiding speakers in cabinets:

  • Position your speakers as close as possible to the front of the cabinet and make sure they face the listening area.  
  • Make sure there’s enough space around the speakers so they can breathe.
  • If the back of the cabinet is closed, you’ll want to add some ventilation holes to allow air to circulate.
  • For rear-ported speakers, consider removing the cabinet’s back entirely. This is because rear-ported speakers rely on air moving in and out of the speaker through the back. If there isn’t enough air, it will negatively impact the sound quality, especially the lower frequencies.
  • Experiment with different angles and positions of the speakers until you find the one that sounds best.

9. Camouflage Your Speakers on a Gallery Wall

Let your speaker drivers shine like the true works of art they are by disguising them on a gallery wall. 

Mount in-wall speakers or set your bookshelf speakers on floating shelves between decorative art, pictures, or other hanging decorations. But be strategic about it.

Let them play a supporting role instead of making them the focal point. Maintain a good balance of artwork and decorations around the speaker so it blends in naturally. 

For in-wall speakers, try placing a frame around each one and paint the frame to match the dominant colors in your art pieces or the same color as the room’s decorative theme. 

This subtle modification will make them look more like artwork than actual speakers, effectively hiding them in plain sight. 

If you get everything positioned but still feel like the speakers are attracting too much visual attention, add a soft, indirect light. This will put more focus on the other pieces and help balance out the visual weight of the speakers in your living room.

10. Use Potted Plants to Hide Your Speakers

Placing potted plants in front of your speakers is a tasteful way to blend them into your living room.

And if you use the right plants, they can even create a more balanced audio environment. That’s because plants absorb sound waves

For larger rooms, this means you can use plants to hide your speakers and have more control over the room’s acoustics. 

For example, plants with thick, broad leaves can reduce echoing and smooth out sounds, making your audio sound more natural.

A set of bookshelf speakers with indoor plants around them to disguise them naturally in a room.

However, thick plants aren’t always necessary. Especially in smaller rooms when your speakers already deliver precise and accurate sound. 

In this case, you’d want to use plants with less foliage and smaller leaves so you don’t lose your sound quality. Here are some potted plants to use based on the size of your living room.

Potted Plants to Use in Larger Living Rooms to Hide Speakers

  • Peace Lilies
  • Fiddle Leaf Figs
  • Bird of Paradise
  • Rubber Plant
  • Dracaena
  • Yucca Cane
  • Snake Plants

Potted Plants to Use in Smaller Living Rooms to Hide Speakers

  • Bird’s Nest Fern
  • Bamboo
  • Ponytail Palm
  • Dragon Tree
  • Sago Palm
  • Golden Pothos
  • Money Tree

How to Position Potted Plants in Front of Speakers and Other Tips

Don’t place your plants right in front of your speakers. This could mask the sound and keep the drivers from reaching your ears.

Instead, position the plants slightly off-center and keep them about 6-12 inches away.

Try different plant arrangements until you find the sweet spot between looks and sound. And don’t be afraid to mix and match plants together.

What works best in your living room will differ from what works in someone else’s. 

When selecting your plants, choose ones with sturdy leaves and make sure they don’t have any small parts or flowers that can fall off. This will keep your speakers clean and save you from having to pick up a mess after watching an action movie.

Keep it simple and easy to maintain.

11. Screen Your Speakers with Room Dividers

Room dividers aren’t just a practical way to hide your speakers; they’re also a good way to add a sense of symmetry to your room.

From distinct patterns and artistic prints to more modern and minimalistic styles, there are many designs to choose from that will complement your living room decor.

They’re great if you need a quick solution but can also be used as a more permanent fixture.

For example, if you have guests over and just need to hide your speakers temporarily, you can use a divider that folds. This will give you a temporary wall, which you can remove when they leave. These are also nice because they’re easy to fold and store away until you need them again.

If you want a more permanent option, use a divider with fixed panels.

These can be attached to your ceiling or floor to create the visual barrier you’re looking for. Just keep in mind that if you ever want to change the layout of your living room at some point, you’ll have to move this as well.

Also, if you go this route, choose one designed with a lot of openings so sound can still travel through it.

If you want the best of both worlds, I’d recommend looking at the slatted wood divider from Andor Willow. I love this divider’s design because it allows you to close the slats completely or open them up whenever you want.

A unique way to use it would be to set it as a backdrop to your entertainment center. This would create space between your TV and speakers and remove the cluttered look, making your room feel more open. 

Plus, you can buy as many of these slats as you need to cover the width of your speakers. This way, your speakers can stay separated correctly, and you can keep your soundstage just how you like it. 

Final Thoughts

There you have it! Eleven relatively easy ways to keep your speakers hidden but still thriving, impressing listeners with their immersive, room-filling sound.

You don’t need to make any significant changes or have any more arguments over style versus sound. You’ve got plenty of options to make sure your living room looks fantastic and sounds amazing at the same time. Your speakers don’t have to be the center of attention to give you the quality you paid for.

With some creativity, you can have the best of both worlds – a stylish room and excellent sound.

If you haven’t already, try hiding your speakers using one of the ways I mentioned above, and let me know how it goes!

Feel free to share anything that helped you develop your own solution that might benefit others when hiding their speakers in their living rooms.

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