Living Room

The living room originally had dark wood panelling, dark carpeting, and a defunct fireplace in a wall of brick with a hearth-mounted wood-burning stove.

 

It is now a light green, very open room with neutral tile floors and comfortable, overstuffed leather furniture.  The wood stove, original brick fireplace and insert were all removed. A new insert was installed and the face has been finished off with sheet-rock. A mantle which “He” custom built has been installed and the fireplace is now complete.

One of the best additions to the living room is a 65″ Mitsubishi DLP television complete with THX surround sound. Of course finding furniture to accommodate a television that size was an impossible feat. And, to complicate matters, they decided they must have an armoire. Frankly, we think this was an effort to discourage climbing, though who on earth would do such a thing, we have no idea!

At any rate, eventually there was no other recourse but to build the thing themselves. So, after the purchase of a few new tools and quite a bit of wood, the living room became a woodshop of sorts! Here are the results!

 

Not bad for a couple of people who didn’t really know what they were doing! But, from design to construction to completion, they did it all!  While we think it looks pretty good, we do hate the fact that it doesn’t offer any good climbing spaces or hidey holes. Alley seems to be the only one agile enough to jump to the tower speaker and onto the top of the armoire, but she is usually discouraged from doing so.

In the living room, a foyer was also formed to eliminate walking through the laundry room to gain entry to the house. It can be seen to the right of the television armoire.  Another project to be done eventually is a built-in for the foyer that will also cover the dryer vent that was routed through there to an exterior wall.