Finally, I can walk around naked

We got blinds y'all!  Remember our giant windows in the living room?

It made me so nervous that you could see everything from those windows.

So nervous that we got an alarm system in addition to our blinds.

This picture does no justice to how fabulous and wonderful and awesome and PERFECT these blinds are.  I'm in love with the blinds.

I get an obscene amount of satisfaction from opening and closing them.

They're two-inch thick wooden blinds and it's crazy how much 

they transform the look of the living room.

The blinds make it look like a home and when they were installed, I exhaled.  I was so anxious about the house not feeling like a home and I was paranoid that we were going to get robbed any day because you could see all of our stuff without even trying.  Once the blinds were up and the alarm system activated, I breathed a sigh of relief.  I felt like I could calm down.

However, you know when you get a new haircut and it makes you realize that your makeup sucks?  And you could probably use some new earrings?  And the sweater you're wearing is gross?  And when was the last time you bought some new jeans?

That's how I feel about the living room now.  Our awesome blinds have called attention to everything else that needs fixing.  Let's go back to the first picture of the blinds.

Except let's focus on the entryway.  I hung some of Drew's pictures that he got in India and I tried to take a picture of them because they're really gorgeous.  However, taking pictures of pictures without getting the glare from the glass is nearly impossible and it was starting to annoy me, so you'll have to take my word for it that these pictures are beautiful.

Which means that they need something equally awesome underneath and that drawer thing is not cutting it.  It's way too small and with the baseboard heat on half of that wall space, it can't sit flush against the wall.  That annoys the crap out of me because there's this stupid gap and it looks stupid.  Whatever I get will have to be mounted to the wall so it'll sit flush but I have no clue what that should be.  I was thinking about mounting a bookcase because I still have no books in the living room and it's killing me.  Then I could put a basket underneath the bookcase to put shoes and stuff and that way it would make more sense.  I think.  Do y'all have any thoughts?

Then there's the TV wall.

I need to do something to that wall to make it suck less.  I was thinking of putting frames across the top and sides so it's not just a dumb tv on a wall.

like this from here

But I'm not sure if that'll make the room too busy?  I just know it needs something.  And then I have the big ass wall.  I swear, these big ass walls are trying to end me.

See that sad lonely lamp in the middle of that big ass wall?  

I need to do something about that.

This afternoon, I got out my tape and tape measure to do what they call

'a little visualizing.'

With the help of my trusty assistants for scale, we got to work.

With the front door open, it takes away about a third of wall space.  Except you should have something behind the door when it's closed, right?  I don't know about these things.  I did know that I wanted floating shelves and I thought I wanted three, but when I put the tape up I realized that two is plenty.  I didn't want to make the bottom one too low because the dog bed has to live there and I don't want the dog to bonk her head, and I didn't want Sofia to be able to pull anything off the lowest shelf.  Two shelves it is!

Then I got on Ikea's website to check out their Lack shelves.  They only come in 43 or 74 inches, and of course I need like 52 inches.

That middle line is 43 inches and it's just too short.

Then I put up some 'pictures' to make sure that there would be enough breathing room.

The one on the bottom right is an 8x10, the bottom left is an 11x14,

and the top is a tape rendering of a big frame that we have.  I wanted to make sure 

something really big would fit up there.

Since Ikea doesn't have the length I need, I'm going to try my hand at building the shelves.  Oh yeah, you heard me.  Your girl is about to get handy!  Ana White says they're easy to do and I've got all the tools, so why not give it a shot?

Famous last words, right?

Plus, one of these days before I die, the computer built-in will be finished and we can get rid of the ghetto ass towels underneath the cabinet, and it'll actually look like a regular built-in and the wall will be covered and won't look so terrible.

But then I remember that we've only lived here for two and a half months and I need to cut myself some slack.  We've come a long way.

'Member when it looked like this?  You 'member? 'Member?

PS, that link cracks me up.  I have family members that talk like that

completely unironically.

Anyway, that's what's new around these parts.  And of course I'm trying to talk Drew into getting blinds for the whole house because they look so good.  We got 1-inch ones in our bedroom so of course we need them in the other bedrooms.  Everything has to match!  Right you guys?  

Tell him.