I’ve found that nothing motivates us to start (and finish) a project faster than hosting a party at our house. It gives us a deadline to work around and provides just enough adrenaline to work late nights and finish in the nick of time. We love the anxiety haha.
We offered to host Thanksgiving at our house this year. Hosting your first Thanksgiving (well any holiday event really) is a big deal… what should I serve (I’ve never cooked a Turkey!)? How should I decorate my dining table? What should we do afterwards? We decided upon the food, pulled together a few simple decorations, and then tried to figure out what to do afterwards. We came to realize that most people liked to sit around after the big meal, let the tryptophan set in, and watch football (we aren’t big sports fan). However, where would they sit to do that in our house? (Sidenote TV Story: The Christmas before we got married, I bought Kevin a 32″ TV for his bedroom. When we got married, we set it up in our apartment, realized we never watched it so we sold it to some friends. A few years later they wanted to get rid of it and we were living in our house and still didn’t have a TV so we bought it back haha!) The TV now sits on top of a small armoire in our living room. We don’t have cable or even local channels, we occasionally use it for Apple TV and Netflix. Needless to say, this was not the ideal TV nor location for a big group of people to huddle around. So we decided that this was a better time than ever to build the entertainment center that we always wanted to.
Our family room is a long, rectangular room that had an extremely long couch on one side and long blank wall on the other side. I began perusing Pinterest to find some inspiration to show Kevin. I found a few pictures I liked and he got right to work… and finished it within a few days!
The 32″ TV just couldn’t cut it in our new entertainment center so we borrowed Kevin’s brother’s TV for the sake of turkey day football and purchased a brand spanking new TV the next day, Black Friday… perfect timing!
BEFORE
BEFORE
STEP 1: removed baseboards, ran electrical to TV console
STEP 2: built box frame out in the garage and moved it into the house to get an idea of size
Step 3: affixed to the wall, painted, borrowed a TV for scale, attached frame pieces together
Step 4: Added details (shiplap and moldings)
Step 5: Accessorized! (*Decorations and doors were added after Thanksgiving)
Kids Table
Pinterest Win – Bacon Wrapped Green Beans
Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!
The Home They Built 