Category Archives: Living Room

Corner TV Table

So, now the project that I delayed in order to make an actual wood workshop: the tv table!

My current tv table looks like this:
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Too small for the tv, wedged awkwardly into the corner despite not being a corner table, and my stereo speakers don’t fit inside it (and even if they did, I’d have to open the glass doors to hear them). Clearly this is no longer the right piece of furniture.

So I designed my own corner tv stand – it’s based off the previous tv stand, with some important tweaks. First, it’s a corner tv stand instead of a rectangle. It’s sized so it’s wide enough for the tv, but doesn’t block the baseboard vent to the right of the stand. It’s wide enough to hold my stereo and its speakers. It doesn’t have doors on the bottom section, so I can use my stereo without having to open doors. It also has two shelves for the Tivo, Wii, DVD player, and their accessories. Continue reading →

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New tv, new projects

I don’t watch a ton of television, so I’ve had a 20″ CRT since college, which has done well by me for that entire time. But when playing Donkey Kong Country earlier this year, I ended up sitting on my coffee table to get close enough to play effectively. That was the push I’d needed to start considering a bigger tv, and then I got a quick freelance job that gave me a bit of “extra” cash to spend. With flat-screen LCDs getting less expensive, I started researching options, and ended up with the LG 42CS570 – not one of the newer smart tvs with internet and all of that, but a good, basic, widescreen tv. You guys, it’s so big. And so shiny. And it weighs less than my previous tv, despite being twice as wide. I’m actually really glad they give you a way to screw it into your tv stand, because I might worry the cats would knock it over.

Anyway, as we know, any new acquisition in my house will somehow become a project – and the tv is no exception; in fact, it’s two projects! Number one: move the antenna into the attic so there are no rabbit ears distracting from my shiny shiny tv. Number two – build a corner tv stand so it looks like it belongs in my living room.

Antenna-moving happened last week – the plan was to stick the antenna in the attic, drop the cable from the attic through the wall, and install a cable connector plate on the wall so all that you see is a nice clean coax connector. Preferably really close to the corner so the tv stand will cover it. This… is actually what happened, but it’s never as simple as it sounds, is it? Continue reading →

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the great upholstery project

One of the things I knew I wanted for my living room since I moved in – well, actually, two things – was a pair of chairs in front of the fireplace. Comfy chairs, the kind you’d curl up in to read a book, with a cat on your lap, even. I thought this might be simple – I had one Danish Modern-style chair, inherited from my grandparents, which matched my loveseat, and I was pretty sure there was a second one in my parents’ storage area. So we went to dig it out, and discovered that somehow, some way, the left arm of the chair has disappeared. Or maybe never existed. There was a weird non-arm end that would fit on the chair, but it was a totally different style (square leg instead of tapered round one, total lack of arm…). Anyway, this was not a complete chair, and therefore could not be used as my second chair. So the existing chair moved into the spare room, and I was back to a blank slate for the living room.

Continue reading →

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