entertainment center redo

When we upgraded to our house our square footage tripled. However, we still are spending most of the day in the same amount of space, the approximately 500 square feet that occupy our family room and kitchen. As such, it has been important to me to make these areas as comfortable, functional and aesthetically pleasing as possible. This is a bit of a challenge because this sort of thing does not come naturally to me.

First order of business was painting the family room, which we accomplished at the first of the year when Doug & Tina were visiting from Boston. I love the color and the room is so much brighter and feels much more relaxing. Thanks again for your help, Doug and Tina!

Second order of business was making use of this space:

According to our Realtor, this used to be a bar, but the previous owners refinished it and used it to house their huge box television.

Because of the logistics of the room (fire place, windows, doors to basement, entryway and kitchen, window to kitchen) this area is really the only place to put a tv. Though our old entertainment center fit, it wasn't the most functional. We were wasting a ton of space! It was driving me crazy that we were using the fireplace to "store" things, when there was all this available space. Not to mention the fact that it was a bit of a eyesore.

Ghetto fabulous

So we enlisted the help of our talented friend Ross, and put together some plans to make a simple built in entertainment center with storage.

Building

Ready to paint.

Making progress

I did most of the painting because when we got to this part Anthony was entering a busy period at work. This is where I found out that TJ is particular about painting methods and that true love means accepting criticism when you are wrong and letting things go when someone points out your flaws (still working on that, obviously).

The finished product.

It's amazing how much more pulled together the whole room seems now that this project is complete. Of course, it helps to have a place to put things instead of in piles of miscellaneous junk on the fireplace.

Thanks again to Ross for all your help and to Lauren for sharing your husband!