Today is an exciting day because it’s delivery day for the recliner that I ordered for our bedroom! I ordered the recliner back in August and it was supposed to arrive by November 11th, so I’ve been anxiously awaiting its arrival.
The recliner is going in this corner by the green dresser. The bench has already been reupholstered and put in the foyer of the bedroom suite. So I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what I want to do with the wall behind the recliner.
You can see that the one big issue with this wall, and that area in particular, is the breaker box. I decided to keep it there and live with it rather than paying a lot of money to have it moved to another spot in the house. It’s actually a very convenient place for quick and easy access, so while I initially hated the idea, I’ve come around to it.
After all, it’s over in the corner, so it’s out of the way and not in the direct line of sight when a person enters the room. And I’ve had it in my mind that I can just cover it with a large piece of artwork and possibly even put that piece of artwork on hinges so that it “opens” like a cabinet door to access the breaker box.
But the more I’ve tried to plan, I’ve realized that I didn’t really think this through very well. I missed one big issue on that wall — it will have a big, rectangle TV above the dresser. And I can’t really get excited about having a big rectangle TV above the dresser, and then having another big rectangle piece of artwork covering the breaker box.
So over the last couple of weeks, I’ve had an idea, but I can’t seem to figure out exactly how to make it work. Since this corner will have a recliner, which I envision as a comfy reading corner for me, I thought it would be nice to have some shelves so that I can keep my books (the books I actually read) in here. But I don’t necessarily want a full-height bookcase that will sit on the floor because (1) the depth of the bookcase will push the recliner out into the room even more, and (2) the shelves behind the recliner won’t be easily accessible.
And that led me to the idea of having a wall-mounted bookshelf that only covers the wall above the chair rail. I don’t think I can install any kind of individual shelves since the whole thing will need to be easily moved if I need to get to the breaker box. It needs to be one whole unit that I can still possibly install on hinges. So I’m wondering if something like this would work…
Of course, I can’t find anything that’s big enough for that space, so if I go with this idea, I’ll have to build it myself. If I build it myself, I’m not sure if I can actually pull off that curved top. I’ll have to do some research and see exactly how that’s done.
So that’s the direction I’d love to go with this corner, but I just can’t seem to work out the details. I feel like if I build it myself, I’m right back to having a big rectangle in that spot. The good thing is that at least the shelves would add dimension and I could add some decorative items to the shelves so that it doesn’t read as just another rectangle on the wall next to the TV. But there’s also the issue of how it can be hung on the wall in a way that I can have easy access to the breaker box without having to unload shelves and physically remove the entire thing from the wall in order to access the breaker box.
Tell me your thoughts and ideas on this. Do you think it’s doable?
UPDATE: I’ve often said that answers to my own questions sometimes work themselves out in my mind as I write my blog posts. A lot of my posts really are just my stream of thoughts as I’m trying to work through issues, and I bring y’all along on as I’m working through those things. And the whole process of writing out my thoughts can be very helpful in working through those issues. It’s almost like writing my thoughts taps into a different part of my brain that helps me work through things in a different way than just thinking about them.
And as I wrote the above, and then got to the end of the post, it became obvious to me that the issue isn’t the breaker box area. The issue is that I’m trying to use a Samsung Frame TV as my starting point. I thought it would be nice to have a Frame TV so that it can look more like artwork and less like a TV, but I actually think that’s the wrong decision because then the Frame TV eliminates the most obvious and easiest solution for covering the breaker box, which is to cover it with a large piece of artwork.
I think the best solution would be to allow the TV to look like a TV and just frame it like I’ve framed our previous wall-mounted TVs. But this time, I’d probably build a much smaller profile frame than I’ve built in the past.
But the framed TV, which actually looks like a TV and doesn’t pretend to be artwork, has worked out very well in our breakfast room/sitting room…
It worked just fine in our previous bedroom…
And it worked out in my studio…
None of those are pretending to be artwork, but the frame gives it a clean look and hides the ugly side view of the wall-mounted TV.
So if I do that same thing in the bedroom, and abandon the idea of trying to make the TV look like artwork then I can go back to the easiest and most obvious idea of hiding the breaker box with a large piece of artwork. I just copied and pasted the TV from our breakfast room onto this wall, and I wouldn’t want such a thick frame in this room, but this would be the general idea. And instead of painting this one white, I could even do a light stained wood finish so that it doesn’t demand quite so much attention.
And then I could even hang smaller artwork around the one big (hinged) piece that covers the breaker box to create a kind of gallery wall on that side of the wall. I think this might be the way to go. I don’t really need a TV that looks like artwork, and using our current TV and building a frame for it would save me about $1000 since those Frame TVs are pretty expensive. Of course, I’d lose out on shelves to hold my books, but I have other places where I can store my books, so that’s not a big deal.
Okay, those are all of my thoughts and ideas for this wall. Let me know your thoughts.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.