Slightly Coastal: Why We Aren’t Hiding The T.V. In This House

I know for some people in the decorating world, T.V. is a bad word. Especially a visible T.V.

Not in this family.

One of my fondest memories as a child was running home from school to tune in to Happy Days. As soon as I would get home my mom would toast two pieces of bread with strawberry jam and a glass of milk and spread a towel down on the carpet and I would have a “picnic” while watching Happy Days. It was my after school ritual as a kid. I learned about the world of politics as I sat in the family room with my parents and watched the Carter/Reagan debate and learned about the world of professional football while watching the Minnesota Vikings play between naps on the sunny part of the family room floor.

In turn, we are raising kids who love to hang out in their jammies on Saturday morning watching cartoons, watch blockbusters with us with air popped popcorn, and talk about world events after watching the news.

We aren’t hiding the T.V. in our house.

It is at the center of the room and I’m not apologizing for that. We live in a small house where the living/family room is the central hub where we all hang out together and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We all want to be with each other all the time and that in itself is a true blessing.

Instead of hiding the T.V. I decided to incorporate it into a whole wall design. Here is how it looked before I started.

Rather boring isn’t it? One day as I was staring at it I had the idea of adding long upholstered fabric panels to each side. The problem was I didn’t want to pull yet another fabric into the room, but I knew I wanted the height. A few months ago while hitting garage sales I ran across two packs of unfinished shutters still in their packaging and picked them up for $10. It suddenly hit me that I could paint the shutters and stack them to create a tall panel. Here is what I ended up with.
I know I want to pull more blue and white into this house.  I love the mix of traditional blue and white mixed with coastal elements.  I found all of these ginger jars and blue and white porcelain in the thrift store one day.  It was like someone just cleaned out their whole house… and I brought it home to mine.

The striped chair is slated to be reupholstered by yours truly this fall.  I found the most gorgeous green, blue, and cream fabric that will tie the whole thing together nicely.

I love how the blue of the shutters pulls out the blue in my Charleston Battery Signed Print my parents gifted me upon graduating from the College of Charleston.

You might notice a big blank spot above the T.V….well I have plans for that space which should be hitting this little blog in a few short weeks.

So we are not trying to hide the T.V. in this house.  We just decorate around it and incorporate it into our lives.

I created this fun little gif to show you how it all came together.  Enjoy!

I’m sharing this at the following parties:

Monday

[Something To Talk About]     [The Scoop]

Tuesday

[Show and Share]     [Inspire Me Tuesday]     [Totally Terrific Tuesday]

Wednesday

[Treasure Hunt Thursday]     [Wow Us Wednesday]

Thursday

[Craftberry Bush]     [French Country Cottage]     [Share Your Style]

Sunday

[DIY Show Off]