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I recently rearranged the room above to try to make the TV less of a feature/eyesore, nestled as it had been under the bay window. I’m not convinced this is the right arrangement, but I like to test drive new layouts for a few days to see how they feel in action.
Where to put a television is one of those age-old interiors dilemmas. And good luck looking for inspiration in interiors books or magazines - we stylists have an annoying habit of hiding them for shoots as they just look like big black blobs in photographs. When I decided to knock out all the walls between the kitchen, living room and corridor (scroll to see before pics), I knew it would be an issue since this room is now all doors and windows with few areas to put a TV that would be visible from where the sofa would also need to be. It’s a small-ish issue that in winter hibernation/peak tv watching time becomes a big-ish issue.
By tucking the telly on a side wall and moving the sofa to face it I’ve divided the room and lost the openness that I liked about the space, but I’ve also created a cosier nook by closing down the room a bit. It’s the perfect little cocoon for cosy winter viewing, but that is really all it’s good for.
It makes me think of Joey from Friends when he meets someone who doesn’t own a TV: “What’s all your furniture pointed at?”
In this set up, the furniture really is all pointing at the TV. And for now that’s fine because, well Winter. But come Spring and Summer when I’ll entertain more, a rethink may be in order.
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Projector? Hmmm. Would be ideal, but unless technology has improved I can’t do the fully blacked out room thing required for crisp projector screen viewing. A Samsung Frame TV? Absolutely, but I’m on a strict no spend regime until I take care of important, dull and very expensive things like new windows and a front door that doesn’t look like it belongs on a 1970s local council office. So unless they want to gift me one then that’s also a no.
So we make do, something I’m almost too good at.
There has been a lot of making do with this house renovation. While we’ve spent money on big things like plumbing, electrics, removing walls/ceilings, bathrooms, even building a reading nook mezzanine for goodness sake, I still don’t have a wardrobe for my clothes and shoes.
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