Weird title, right? Yeah. This is The.Fireplace.Post! Get ready for all kinds of crazy weirdness. (I think I’ll probably have to split it into two posts…..stay tuned.)
Let me explain.
Meet the Deluxe Home Entertainment Center:
Wait.
Deluxe?
Really?
um….. apparently so?
This is what our fireplace looked like when we moved in. It’s “deluxe” according to the builder who built our 10-year old house.
Not bad right? Well, not terrible at least. Just sort of boxy. And kind of Southwestern-looking. And a huge waste of space. The fireplace structure was also not centered on the corner, which drove me completely batty a few times.
So how about that TV? We thought our sellers were So Sweet! for leaving their TV behind for us. But really, it was because you couldn’t get it out without removing the trim AND part of the drywall. So sweet. So. So. Sweet.
And when the TV finally came out, we saw that we were stuck. Our flat screen TV (sitting humbly on the floor there) definitely wouldn’t fit and of course there was nothing left to mount it to.
So we ‘made do’ for a while. It was our Sheetrock Elephant in the Corner. In cleaning the fireplace one day we realized the brass strips were held on by magnets! They decorated the recycling bin very nicely for about a week 😉 That was a nice little improvement for a while.
Now you can see where our TV lived.
And the lovely cords running hither-thither.
And the wine rack trying to hide the 50 feet of cable shoved behind it. I really don’t think 50 feet is an exaggeration. Really!
Have you also noticed the big hole inside the cubby? I got impatient one day and took a pry bar to it. I do get impatient sometimes. Just once an hour in a while 😉 And I figured it couldn’t get any uglier? Yeah, well it could. And it did. My fault, just this once.
Finally, after five months we had saved enough money and found one FANTASTIC contractor who agreed to rip the whole thing out and rebuild it.
Right after Christmas, this is what it looked like:
So I might’ve also used it as a canvas to test out some paint colors too…. (it was going to be ripped out anyway, so why not?)
AND THEN the fun (and dust) began! Stay with me for Part Deux tomorrow morning!
Burbs & Blooms 