Spunky Junky's Living Room

So when we built our house we decided we would put our mantle in the corner of our living room. Our vision was to put the television on top of the mantle and then center the furniture so that the mantle would be the focal point of the room.

Well, that didn't happen. First, our mantle is so high that when the tv is on top of it, Punk can't see it. Secondly, when we rearranged the furniture so that it was facing a corner, it then closed off a large portion of the room.

ahhhhh, the frustration!

I laid in bed at nights wondering how I could fix our corner mantle dilemma!

 With the help of this our good friend, who is an interior designer, we finally came up with this idea. Here's why we set it up this way...

Because we only have one living area upstairs, it has to serve as an enteraining spot for friends and family as well as a living space for our day-to-day living.

Since it is a VERY open space that connects directly to the kitchen and dining area we wanted to enclose it in a manner where it would be cozy during cold days and movie nights, but still open enough for large parties.

Furthermore, since the front door is located off to the side of our living room, we wanted to create a segway where guests can walk into the house without walking "through" the living/entertaining area.

 I don't know if it is because we live in Montana or not, but our house has a very rustic theme, of which I am starting to pull away from (much to the dismay of Hunk). Because of this our house is accented with a variety of knick-knack antiques.

For instance, I wanted this steamer trunk to be a bold accent in our living room so I set the tv on top of it. Not only is it a unique entertainment stand, but it provides some added flare to the room.

 Since our furniture is not against the wall I also needed to find pieces to put behind it so the back of the couch did not become a focal point when looking at it from the dining area.

Bareback couch in middle of the room=bad, bad idea.

Accents behind the couch that tie it into the living room= good idea.

Finally, storage, storage, storage.

 Since our living area also serves as a place for our 15 month old to live as well, we needed to create unique ways to store our movies, magazines, toys, and blankets.

What's your favorite feature of your living room?