I was SUPER excited to help these next friends in their family room! (Been helping in lots of family rooms lately…so fun!) They moved into our neighborhood a year ago and we love having them as neighbors.  Their house is beautiful and they’ve done such a great job with it so far.

They reached out for my help with this giant, empty, family room wall.  I’ve found this is actually one the main things people reach out to me for help with.

“What in the world do I do with this big empty wall?!”

I already have a few go to’s to help with this — a big wall of pictures, open shelves, a big built in unit…

This family had a TV on a small entertainment center they transferred from their last house, but knew it was too small for the space.   Here are the “we need your help” pictures they sent me 🙂I got to work and began planning. I loved the idea of a shallow, short entertainment center with open shelves all around the TV and hanging the TV on the wall.  I found some inspiration pictures online and sent them a little sketch of what was in my head.

I also found this awesome entertainment center.Unfortunately, it was $797 (AKA out of the budget!).  However, this is EXACTLY what we were thinking, so I wound up building something very similar for them.  The good thing about custom building is that I can build to fit the exact space. And build to fit a soundbar or TV equipment, or basket, etc.
[SIDENOTE: I wish I could spend all of my time building, staining, and finishing, but I don’t really have too much time with all my little people at home right now.  If this is something you’d be interested in, you can get on an already-growing-list and we can talk about possibly doing a build down the road!]

I finished the unit, purchased some baskets for it and and they picked it up.

Next, I sent her a few bracket options and we chose and ordered brackets for the open shelves to go around the TV.Then I spent time at their home on shelf placement.  Masking tape or blue painters tape is perfect for this, especially if you’re not good as visualizing and you need to “see it.”  This method really helps!Here’s what it looked like when the shelves were up and we got the large TV bracket hung in the middle.  We still needed to hide the cords and hang the television.When I left that first day this is what it looked like.  Next up…SHOPPING FOR and STYLING THE SHELVES! My favorite part! I had a really successful few trips to HomeGoods.

Annnnd here’s the finished project!Wow, I’m just loving this new space! Let me know what you think!