A Winning Weekend

I feel like we just had a huge success for The Compact, which resulted in a new living room.

It started with moving the couch.  Our house is sometimes painfully small, especially the living room / dinning room combo space.

Call it a stroke of genius, I thought moving the TV (my least favorite piece of electronic equipment) into the "office" (which was the "yoga room" before takeover) and creating a "man's room" would help create more "living" in the "living room."  Then we could face the couch toward the chairs in front of the window and create a real, live and livable space.

It was my covert plan to remove the TV from literally the center of our house.

I thought I'd meet resistance since Ron's favorite place is the couch, remote in hand.  He was surprisingly open to it.

First we had some measuring and logistical issues to tend to: what furniture do we have now that we can use in the re-work.  We needed something to put the TV on, something to sit on in the Man's Room, something to hold the stereo in the living room.  Technical assessments included outlets and cable.

We determined that the move was, in fact, possible, and decided what we needed.

Let's get down to what we actually bought.

We got a papasan chair and a great rug on Craigslist.

A writing desk at a yard sale for my much needed window-view work area. 

A 6-foot mirror that was not in the plan, but Ron wanted.

A pair of old (I think "antique" is a little too flattering, tho they are very cute) chairs.

A 1920s amoire which holds my yoga-related library.

(Previous two items at The Antique Company, and mirror at Home Style, our neighbors.  Felt good to keep it in the hood.)

And what we reused.

TV stand for TV in Man's Room.

Couch, chairs and ottoman which is not my seat for the desk in the living room.

Old old old TV stand for stereo in living room.

I think the amazing thing is it feels like a completely different house.  It's more inviting, more conversational, more "clean" feeling.  

The Man's Room is tight.  As in close-fitting.  And, Ron might never leave that room now.  Desk - papasan - sleep - repeat.  I promised him we will reassess in a couple of weeks.

I'm utterly blissed out at having a room to go where there is no TV.  It really is that big of a deal.

The funny thing is, I don't know that we would have done it much differently even if we weren't doing The Compact.  We still would have checked Craigslist and our neighbors.  We might have gone to Living Space on Broadway, or looked for a new rug.

Either way, I'm so excited about the change it's had on the house and the feeling of space here.