Dad to the Rescue

Since we moved in, Melissa and I have been working on slowly getting everything up on the walls.  Most of the shelves and art we can handle by ourselves, but we needed help installing a couple of the larger pieces.  So a couple of weeks ago my Dad came over to help hang up the heavier and more complicated wall items.

First up was mounting the TV.  In the past we've always just had the TV standing on a surface.  However, in this new apartment, we have limited space in the living room.  We decided to mount the TV to free up some floor space and hopefully open up the feel of the room.

We made the decision to mount the TV almost as soon as we moved in, but we stalled once it came to actually buying a mount.  We wanted a quality mount, so there was no risk of the TV falling off the wall.  However, with higher quality comes a higher price tag.  Most of the mounts we found in stores were around the $100 range, which was more than we wanted to spend.

So we waited and kept looking.  Luckily, in the end, our patience paid off.  We had been eyeing this Dynex mount, since it was the same brand as our TV.  It was $50 in stores, and we were about to just suck it up and shell out the money.  But before we made it to the store, Melissa found the mount on a website for $25.  Since we weren't sure about the quality of the site, we took a printout of the listing to Best Buy and asked if they'd match the price... and they did!  We were thrilled getting the mount for 50% off.

Since we finally had the mount we couldn't wait to get it up.  Here's how the TV was setup before we mounted it.

It was sitting on a very low and very old IKEA cabinet.  The cabinet is in great condition considering its probably about the same age as me, but I just wasn't loving it as a TV stand.  When sitting on the couch, you practically had to look down in order to watch TV.  And since it was on the same level as all the other furniture in the room, it gave the living room a very one dimensional look.

Once the TV was mounted, it added some much needed height to the living room area.

The lamp has since been relocated, which you will be able to read all about in an upcoming post about my big living room rearrange.  But the lamp gives you an idea of about the height the TV was hung at.

Since the TV was no longer standing on the cabinet, we had plans to move it elsewhere in the apartment.  But since it was currently housing all our DVDs, we needed a new storage solution.  So later after my Dad left, we decided to hang some frosted glass shelves underneath to hold the DVDs, DVD player and Wii.  We had been looking for a place to hang these shelves and I am just smitten with how our new TV area turned out.

And here it is with the shelves all loaded up.

I am absolutely in love with our new TV setup.  We have plans to get one of those wall cord-wranglers so we won't have all those cords just hanging out looking terrible.  But we're ok with just dealing with it for a little bit.

Once my Dad hung up the TV for us, it was onto the PB Teen style tiles system.  I have to say, I absolutely love its functionality and how pretty it is, but it is just a pain in the behind to hang up (according to my Dad).  This was the fifth time he's had to hang it up (I've moved a lot) and I'm extremely grateful.  So if you are thinking about buying one of these systems, make sure you have someone with an engineering degree to help you hang it (like my Dad).  And even then you may have to bribe them with donuts once they realize how much of a pain it is.  But enough of my ranting, here are the before and afters.

I shared with you in a previous post here, that I had planned on hanging my style tiles system above the beside table.  I really love how it fills up that previously blank wall space.

Previously, I always had the tiles hung over a piece of furniture, such as my desk or dresser.  However, in those places it was very hard to reach, so it never really got used.    I'm hoping this new accessible location will make it easier for us to really be able to utilize the system.

There are so many possibilities for uses of this system.  I have some awesome day of the week magnets I hope to use for a week-at-a-glance spot on one of the tiles.  That's pretty much the only plans I have so far, but I can't wait to really whip this system into an awesome hub of organization.

The last thing on our list was hanging the big mirror over the vanity.  The dressing table was definitely looking a little naked without the mirror hung over it.

Now that the mirror is hung back in its proper place, I can finally use the vanity again, instead of bringing all my makeup into the bathroom.  It could still use some extra lighting, but that will have to be a project for another day.

So there's what we've added to the walls of the apartment.  Do you love it as much as I do?  It feels as though adding these three things to the wall have made a huge step towards really making our apartment moved in.

What have you guys been up to?  Have you gotten a great deal on something as a reward for waiting it out until you found the perfect purchase?  Any small additions that made huge changes to the way you see a room?  Have you also had to outsource any projects to family members or friends?  I'd love to see any projects you've been up to recently.