It's been almost two years since we painted the downstairs and made the living room livable. And earlier this year we got our curtains all together and got them hung, and they have really changed the light in the house. But we've only been sort of happy with the furniture. It's good Pottery Barn stuff, but it wasn't enough for all the things we now have attached to the TV. Somehow, even without having cable or satellite, we still have a lot of cords.
Before:
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| See those cords connecting the two pieces together - not very classy. |
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| Everything's just so exposed. |
Early in September, Nate and I made a little trip out to Ikea to look and wander and have fun. But we also knew that Ikea had some nice looking entertainment centers, and we spent over an hour selecting exactly what we needed for the space.
Our only mistake was not purchasing the items that day. We decided to buy online, which meant the items had to be shipped from a warehouse somewhere else in the country to a local delivery company. That took three weeks. The local delivery company took another week to delivery it, very ineptly and unprofessionally. If you are near an Ikea, buy it in store and take it home, or pay for the local same-week delivery option. Cheaper than online and much, much quicker.
It took four weeks exactly for the items to arrive. And when they did get here last Saturday afternoon, we began to build.
And build.
Other important steps were replacing the baseboard...
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| Which seems to be secured by painting it into the carpet. |
...and hiding all of those pesky cords.
Then it was time to finish things up and test the electronics. Which we did by watching football.
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| All put together. |
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| Jill helped by reading the instructions. |
The new unit has tons more storage, hides all of the components, and gives us a space to display all of the wonderful pottery we are lucky enough to own. And we didn't even fill up the unit! There's empty space. What a concept
Again, Before:
And After:
