Know Your Wall Before You Drill
Standard drywall over wood studs is the easiest wall to mount into, but shore homes vary a lot — you may find plaster over lath in an older cottage, concrete block in a ground-floor beach house, or brick veneer. Each requires different hardware: wood screws into studs for drywall, sleeve or wedge anchors for masonry, and toggle-style anchors only as a last resort when studs can't be reached, since anchors alone aren't rated for the weight of most TVs.
A stud finder gets you close, but for a mount holding 40+ pounds it's worth confirming stud location with a small test hole or by checking for consistent 16-inch spacing before committing to the final layout.
Match the Mount to the TV and the Wall
Every TV has a VESA hole pattern on the back and a maximum weight rating — the mount you buy needs to match both, not just the screen size. Fixed mounts sit flattest to the wall but don't allow tilt; tilting mounts help reduce glare from windows, which matters in bright, sunny shore-facing rooms; full-motion mounts let you swivel the screen toward a couch or kitchen but stick out further and need more clearance.
Cable Management and Outlets
Running cables inside the wall to a new low-profile outlet behind the TV looks clean but means cutting into drywall and fishing cable through the stud bay, and if there's insulation or fire-blocking in the way it takes longer than expected. A power outlet already needs to exist near the mount location, or one has to be added — that outlet work should be done by a licensed electrician if it involves anything beyond plugging into an existing receptacle.
If you don't want to open the wall, surface raceways or cord covers are a reasonable middle ground that still hide most of the cable clutter without any electrical work.
Height and Viewing Angle
A common mistake is mounting a TV too high because it looks good from across the room while standing. For most seating, the center of the screen should land close to eye level when seated, which is often lower than people expect — over a fireplace especially tends to force an uncomfortable upward viewing angle unless a tilting or motorized mount is used to compensate.