Trying to think where a Neo Geo would have been in my house had I gotten it back in the day.
For almost all of my childhood, I lived in smallish apartment buildings and shared my room with the rest of my brother and sisters.
Living room would probably be out of the question since while the old family tv looked somewhat similar to the photo below, the top would have had the cable box, vhs player and whatever knick-knacks my mom had at the time. Before getting the VHS player, my NES would have been right next to the cable box.
My room had one of those small black CRT TVs that would have been on top of a small tv stand that had enough room for a NES or N64 and controllers in the middle row and a small drawer for its bottom row that could hold a few things. I did have one of those old small while colored plastic coating metal portable racks but that was much later that probably could hold maybe 1-2 controllers and 4 games at max or just 1 controller and a game with whatever else I'd have on it.