Living Room Makeover: A Change and a New Plan

Tell me this happens to you... You start one project and it rolls into another one before you finish the original project? Anyone?!

We had tackled the new furniture, new rug, new drum stool, new pillows and end table, new curtains, and had finally finished the last thing--painting. We should be done with the living room, right? Insert maniacal laughter here. ;)

As we were clearing our living room out to paint, Jeremy mentioned wanting to move the TV over the fireplace. He's mentioned this for years, but I'm not a huge fan of the idea. We had a giant TV cut out over our fireplace in our last home and always hated it. It drove me bonkers, especially when we still had an old TV. Even with a newer TV, it was still a big dust and cord pit. If we stayed there, we would have built some doors or something because it drove me nuts. Here's an old picture of Jeremy and I back at our old house. You can kind of see the TV pit in the background. Arg. On a random note, I'm not a huge fan of my hair in this picture, but it really gives me the itch to chop all my hair off!

Every time Jeremy mentioned moving the TV above the fireplace in this house, I cringed because all I could visualize was our previous TV pit. However, as we were moving furniture out of the living room, we were really enjoying how spacious the living room was looking. He convinced me to try moving the TV so we could put our new chair in the corner where the TV was. It would open up an entire wall! After we painted, I agreed to give it a test run and I'm sold. He wins! ;) I love all the open space we have now!

It didn't come without compromise, though. I wasn't sold on the look of the TV above the fireplace. It looked really dark up there and kind of got lost. But after some brainstorming, I thought some bright white planking would brighten things up and make the TV look more intentional up there. Here was some of my inspiration that I've loved over the years.

(via The Lettered Cottage)

(via House Tweaking)

Jeremy liked that idea, so that's where we're headed next! Here's how it's looking right now. Basically, it's a giant, undecorated, tangled up mess. 

Gorgeous, right? Ha! I have no idea why the coloring is so weird in these pictures! Gray walls are tricky to photograph!

Because this is an unexpected project that we haven't saved for yet and we do all of our projects with cash, it will need to happen in two phases to give us time to save up.

Phase 1: We'll add planking from the mantle to the ceiling and replace our black cords with white cords to make them a teeny bit easier on the eyes. 

Phase 2: We'll replace our TV with a larger TV that is easier to see from the couch. We'll wall mount it and have it wired so there will be no cords showing. Yay!

Can't wait to get started on the planking this weekend!