It's a great time to snuggle up around the fire and drink hot drinks.
It's a great time to read good books and play music.
It's a great time to surf pinterest and brainstorm house renovations.
And when your husband stays home for a few days over Christmas -- and we have a few days of extreme torrential downpour and flooding to keep us house-bound.... It's a great time to whip out one of those great brainstorming projects!
So -- voila..... our trendy new box rail (soon to be) barn door and handy new T.V. hide-away:
Thus solving our dilemma about how to watch family movies, without having a T.V. dominate the living room landscape.
Some day we may upgrade to a larger T.V. -- and corresponding larger painting. But right now we are perfectly content. Compared to huddling around the laptop set up on the coffee table, this is sheer bliss! The kids love the concept, and especially the fact that the T.V. wall mount allows the T.V. to be pulled out and tilted in any direction.
The project began with Clay screwing two 5/4" x 6" pine boards into the wall studs. We needed a little extra wiggle room before attaching the box rail so that we would have room to fit the slim T.V. and wall mount kit behind the painting. After buying a couple beautiful walnut boards from a local wood shop, Clay sanded and finished them with natural danish oil, and then prepped them by countersinking holes for lag screws.
These were then attached to the pine boards (easier said than done -- but we made it!). Leveling these boards was key over such a long distance. Never mind that our old farm house ceiling is far from level...
Clay then attached the box rail hardware onto the walnut boards. For now we are just using the girls' old bedroom door, which is too small for the opening. Sometime soon Clay is planning on getting some more walnut lumber and building a barn door. Getting this bedroom door on a rail has opened up a ton of space in the girls' small room -- especially since there are two doors going into their room!
But my favorite part of this new project, and the main reason why we decided to go for it, was to cleverly hideaway our new wall T.V.
We already had this great Charles Russell masterpiece, Clay just built up the back of it so that he could attached the hardware onto the frame. The back may not be super slim & sleek, but seems to be sturdy, and it just gets slid to its spot behind the chimney where it is not really visible anyway, so we don't mind! For the piece of wood that showed above the painting frame we used a leftover walnut piece so that it would tie into the rail.
One thing that I was torn about was whether or not I should try spray painting the hardware so that it is black instead of galvanized. Galvanized was the only option of box rail that we could find to purchase. And all of our other furnishings are dark bronze or black so I wasn't sure if it would clash. However, we are reluctant to try spray painting galvanized metal because of the scratches that will probably occur. And it's actually really attractive next to the dark walnut wood!
What do you think?
More photos to come when we actually build the barn door.
It is Fantastic. I like the galvanized hardware just as it is. It seems to fit right in especially when you build the barn door. Great job.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDelete