Cabin Living Room Planning

Hello there old friends.  You may have noticed that I've slowed down a bit in the past month or so, and that's because, well, this blog is about reality, and in reality, I slowed way down.  After a long year of renos up at the cabin, work got busy, then the holidays got busy, and we took a little break from building.

But like most of the time, I can't stay away for long.  There's nothing like cold weather and cabin fever to draw me towards a project. (Last year at this time we built the third bedroom and the year before that we remodeled the basement.)  I mean, you can't go outside anyway, so why not tear apart the inside of your home? 

So I've got the itch, and it's time to start planning the cabin Living Room reno. We've already come a long way- remember this guy?

We spent hours and hours of my life that I'll never get back removing the wall paper and painting, and then adding the wood floors to get to this fresh, clean slate.  Not to mention removing the couch from hell.
 

And then late last fall I removed the small window.

 

Why you ask?  To make room for this:
 

 We'll build a gas fireplace in the center with a TV mounted above it and flanked by built in shelving. I'm not usually a TV above the fireplace kind of gal, but sometimes you really don't have a choice.  (We could choose to loose the television all together, but I've been overruled my friends.  The family has decreed that the TV will stay.) 

If you prefer a floor plan to get your head around it, here's what we have now.

With the addition of the shelving we'll loose the large slipper chairs that you see in some of the photos above.  We'll center the couch on the larger picture window, put a smaller lounge chair tucked between the bookcase and window, and build a console table for behind the love seat to push that over and increase the opening into the room.

And for those of you that prefer a visual, here's some inspiration I'm working from.  I love the solid cabinets at the bottom for concealed storage of games and blankets, and the crisp white shelves above.

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  Initially I really loved this more rustic approach with the reclaimed wood mantel and wood paneling.  In fact, we have wood just like the rustic blue pieces just begging to be used.  But now that the TV needs to go above the mantel, I'm not sure that we'll even see the wood, and it may be used better elsewhere. 

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Which lead me to this look.  Painting the back of the shelves a deep, rustic blue really helps the items on the shelves pop and bring character to the space. And even though I know it will be a lot more work, I'm really intrigued with the idea of hiding the TV behind a pair of bi-fold doors.  This inspiration seems like just the right combination of rustic cottage yet crisp and white. 

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So that's where we're headed, and I can't wait to tell you all about it.  Luckily we have a little practice building a wall for a fireplace insert and rocking a fireplace face. I literally can't wait to get up North and get started!