A Good Surprise???

For the past few weeks, my husband has been talking about putting the TV up on the wall instead of using the TV stand we bought from Ikea a few years ago.  I must admit- I am not a fan of TVs on the wall. UGH! They are not very attractive hanging there. Of course, they're not attractive on a TV stand either, but at least there aren't exposed wires and such.

One night last week, my husband decided to call up a friend and rearrange the living room to mount the TV to the wall and open up the room. I'm all for opening up this room. It's a long skinny rectangle and can be hard to work with.

There was a large hideous nonworking fireplace in the room a few years ago. It was literally about 3.5 feet deep, 4 feet wide and 4.5 feet tall. It took up a LOT of the room. I really wanted to keep it and fix it up to work with it, especially if we could get it working. I called out some chimney guys and we found that there was no way to get it working without spending $1500. I'm not spending that much on something I'm not fond of. So, hubby and I knocked it out and put up shelves to change up the room. (I know, many of you are screaming, but really, if you had an ugly brick nonworking fireplace that took up 1/4 of the room, you would have made a similar decision (I think)).  Here it is after we finished it.

The fireplace took up where the TV and half the chest are in this picture. It was up to the bottom of the top picture.

This is the view of the room from the shelving.

 Anyway, as I was saying before I ventured through a time warp, hubby on a whim decided he wanted to change up the room. I'm all for change, just hate the fact that the TV is possibly going to be hanging on the wall. Yes, it makes sense and everyone's doing it, but I go against convention at times.

So, the guys came over and they started working... and they worked and worked and worked. I didn't think it would be so much work, honestly. I woke up at 1:30 to the sound of drills. Yes, 1:30 A.M. The house was a MESS (notice the capital, bold, italicized letters). I peeked down the stairs (as you see lil man doing in the pic above). I almost fell down them in shock at how big of a mess there was. Mind you, lil man was asleep upstairs. If he would have woke, I'd have been pretty doggone ticked. Yes, I get that way in the middle of the night when I'm woken up by noise only to find a mess everywhere.... (breathe, breathe)... I'm okay now...

I figured they were done. The TV was on the wall and surely all they need to do is clean up. Right? Imagine my surprise on Sunday morning when I wake up to a kid with a fever and a downstairs that looks like this: (Needless to say, I wasn't pleased and this wasn't a good surprise)

AHHHH! no place to sit and cuddle lil man!

Be careful walking on the open floor! Parts everywhere!

Oh boy!

Then to see it spill over to the dining room (which needs finished)!!!

Really????

 It was clearly a mess. However, I know it often takes making a mess to make something better and more organized -right? I mean, you can't organize a junk drawer with the stuff in it- or can you??? Not the the living room was a large junk drawer.

After a week of working off and on on the project (It's hard to get everything done in a day when you work full-time), this is what it looks like:

View from loveseat and old fireplace wall.

Removed some shelves (for under TV) and lowered these. View from entry/stairs

My favorite things: those awesome green chairs- more on those later.

This is a much better surprise to come down to. A nice, clean, organized living room.... Ahh....
As you can see in the pic above, there are still exposed wires we need to fix. Hubby's working on it. The majority of what we have in the room are things we had, found thrifted, were given or got a great deal on. I loved that we were able to reuse the shelves in other places. Now to just clean up a little of those wires and darker things. Maybe I could make a cool TV cover/artwork like Maria at John's Journal did with hers.

Image from John's Journal

Although, I'm not sure what would happen with that painting when the TV was on, which is every night. It might get to be a pain to remove and replace all the time. Still considering it though.

So, what are your thoughts- pleasantly surprised/none-to-pleased?  I'm curious! :) Leave a comment below. 

Oh! I do know it seems weird that I tagged this in 2012 goals, but we are getting organized through this project- Now to tackle that ugly Little Tikes toy box into something else.