Cote De Texas Reader Home

Please look at this.

Please.

It's so pretty.

Thank You Windsor Smith!

So after reading this on Apartment Therapy quite some time ago, I got 1. very defensive and 2. a little bit angry. So many people knock the whole TV over the fireplace thing and I happen to have (GASP) a TV over my fireplace in our living room. I was very excited when our TV was put up over our fireplace. Our living room is very oddly set up (in terms of walls, openings, and windows) and over the fireplace was really the only place in the room we could put the TV without it being very awkward or having to position the furniture away from the fireplace which i really want to do. We are lucky enough to have a fireplace where the mantle is not very high and therefore you don't have to strain your neck or stare towards the ceiling to see the tv. Also, we only have one large living room, we don't have a separate family room or another room where we could have a large sofa and the TV. Hopefully someday, but not quite yet. Even with all of these very good reasons, I was still a little peeved about all the negative comments on the Apartment Therapy post. I don't know why it bothered me, I guess because I felt like I was breaking some major design rule. So when I received my House Beautiful this month with images of Windsor Smith's home it made me feel oh so much better about our TV being placed over the fireplace. So thank you Windsor Smith, for proving all those naysayers wrong!

So for all of you rule breakers out there with a TV over your fireplace here are some very lovely images of just that.

The first image is from the aforementioned article in October's House Beautiful.

The next images show one of my favorite ideas that I hope to incorporate some day - framing the TV

http://www.hometheaterandbeyond.com/gallery.cfm

http://www.brooklynlimestone.com/

These last images show some other unique ways people have used to refine the wall mounted TV look.

http://chriskauffman.blogspot.com/

http://www.houzz.com/

http://www.houzz.com/

http://www.houzz.com/

And finally, drumroll please..........

The first images of our home on this blog. These are only of the Living Room. Images of the rest of the home will come in later posts. But I want you to see our Living Room and the layout and our own TV over our fireplace. Some are a little blurry. I desperately need a new camera. Especially because the one I have now no longer even takes photos but is permanently in the record mode.

The first image is of the back wall of our living room. This is the only floor to ceiling wall that does not have windows or the fireplace. It is also directly across from the fireplace. Therefore if we put our TV here the sofa would have its back to the fireplace. We could have also put the furniture perpendicular to the TV but it would have really cut off our space due to the size of the sofa.

This image is of one of our side tables which has now found a new home between our two slipper chairs. Please ignore the guitar hero guitars in the background.

This is the wall that is to the left of the sofa. As you can see it's all windows. It also contains the little wall that juts out that I despise. I believe it's load bearing, we're going to have someone check it out to be sure though because it makes designing this space and the layout somewhat difficult.

Our TV over the fireplace! To the left of the TV is a cabinet for glasses/liquor/table linens etc. To the left of that is our front door.

So as you can see we still have a lot to do in here. I want to eventually have built in shelving on both sides of the fireplace (As you can see our cable box and DVD player currently reside on a large storage bin - the shelving will solve this problem). The wires need to be routed through the wall so that they are not visible. The fireplace needs new tile. The room needs to be painted. The speakers need to go and need to be replaced by ones that are much less ugly and noticeable and they will definitely be removed completely from the fireplace mantle. And in the long run the floors will be replaced or refinished. You cannot tell here, but they are in bad bad shape.

So there it is your first view of our home. Fireplace, TV, and all.

Woohoo!

Ok, so clearly I am new to the whole blogging thing. And I don't know how to set this up so I can actually see when someone comments on any of my posts. Really this hasn't mattered to me until NOW. Until just a few minutes ago I was certain no one had ever read any portion of my blog (except my sister because she really loves me and my husband - and he's really only probably looked at it once when I first started, and only because I made him). Today while trying to go back and look at some drafts of posts that I've started and never finished I noticed I had comments from two different bloggers.

1. Mrs. Limestone - who I've already declared my blog love for.

2. Hello Gorgeous - whose blog I was not super familiar with before but will certainly be adding to my google reader subscription.

Thanks Ladies! You made my day (week, months, etc.). I immediately sent my husband an email at work to tell him, and when I didn't get the immediate email reply, I called him. Just to be sure he understood the extent of my excitement.

Blogging consistently is so much harder than I ever imagined. It takes a lot of time to write/find images etc (and I've only done a measly 19 posts). I give so much credit to all these great bloggers out there who really come up with unique/interesting/inspiring posts each day! And thank you again to my commenters (all 2 of you!), it makes me so excited to keep blogging.

Alright, really, I swear, my next post will be about pretty things.

Bogus

Alright I have to do a design star post. Now I like Antonio, I think he seems like a cool dude, he's handy, and he designed some cool spaces this season. But I think it is completely bogus that he won. I think both Dan and Lonni's designs in the last two weeks were far better than Antonio's. I think Antonio won solely because he's very different than anyone else on HGTV, which I get, but if the winner isn't really going to be based on design then they cannot call it design star. Lonni's designs tended to remind me of Candice Olsen and Dan himself reminded me of David Bromstad, this, I believe was their downfalls.

Lets start with two weeks ago.

Lonni's Bedroom:

Antonio's Office

Dan's Nursery

I'm sorry but Antonio's room really fell short for me. He definitely had some cool elements (the clocks, the map), but overall it just didn't have that jaw dropping effect. Lonni's bedroom on the other hand I thought was absolutely beautiful. I love the patterned wall and the seating area looks extremely comfy. I would be on cloud nine if my bedroom looked like that. Dan scared me for a little bit - themes in rooms scare me. But he really pulled it off (atleast I think so), the boats hanging from the ceiling were kick *ss. So nonetheless when they sent Lonni home, I was peeved to say the least.

On to last nights episode. Dan and Antonio made over whole homes.

Antonio's Home

Dan's Home

I'll admit I was not really smitten with Dan's redo of the daughters bedroom (last picture). But I think all the other rooms in that home rocked. I really loved the counters he chose for the ktichen. Loved the mirrored doors that hide the tv over the fireplace. And I must give Antonio lots of credit for his living room. Cutting that cabinet in half and framing the fireplace with it was awesome, and the overall room is very rustic eclectic looking and I like it. But the rest of his house did not do a whole lot for me. And it would have been a very good possibly that if I walked into my bedroom and the walls were that green color there would have been tears (and not of joy). So to say the least I was very bummed when they named Antonio the winner.

Rant over. I will now get back to my daily HGTV marathon.

I should also apologize, I feel like these last two posts have been real negative nancy's. I'll stop. I swear.