If there was ever anything in my house needing an overhaul, the TV wall was it. I couldn’t go through with it for a long time because we built the old TV cabinet with our own bare hands when Saida was an infant (isn’t she cute with the speed square helping her daddy?) and it’s just hard to part with something like that. The reality of it was we built that cabinet to fit a very specific space in our old house and my style has most definitely evolved a ton since then. It was time to acknowledge how it served us and move on. I don’t regret it. This overhaul has left us with something that makes so much more sense in our current space and I can’t stop looking at it (and not just because that’s where the TV is).

Let me show you the embarrassing before picture of our livingroom just before we started this project. It was so neglected. The cabinet is way too big for the space and the number of components/speakers makes me cringe.

Before

You see? It’s embarrassing. Especially for someone who actually loves design. In my defense though, I have been kind of struggling through what I want in this house so just ignoring this space worked just fine for a bit. I’m actually getting ready to repaint most of the house and I only painted it a year and a half ago. The current color is Behr Biking Trail and I’m on the hunt for the perfect Behr white, but social distancing guidelines are kind of putting a kink in my plans.

So I’m not really a step by step instruction kind of girl (we kind of wing most things), but I did want to share a little bit of what this process looked like for us just in case you’re curious or want to do the same.

Planning

I knew at this point that I wanted a shiplap fireplace on this wall with shelves. The only place that made sense for shelves was to the left there beause of the weird diagonal wall to the right. We taped it all out to get a sense of what that would feel like. It was awesome, but also it still wasn’t quite right. The left side of the room still felt heavy and I wasn’t seeing the balance I was hoping this project would bring just yet so I moved the couch… by myself… like a nut, but it definitely started to feel more balanced. An added bonus was it completely opened up this space between our livingroom and kitchen where before we just opened up hallway space. We left it that way for several days because this felt like a big deal and a big expense and we wanted to be totally sure this is what we (by we I mean I) wanted.

Framing and shiplap

We framed with 2x4’s. Nothing is secured to the floor. We wanted the option to remove this thing one day or give the next owners the option to remove without damaging the floors so it’s secured to studs in wall and ceiling. You can see where we added extra support for the fireplace to go in and 2x4’s where the mantle would slide on and attach to the wall. We even pre-wired everything for the TV including power, ethernet, and HDMIs. We were totally being extra, but I’m pretty sure we don’t regret it.

Paint

Yes the shiplap is already white, but that’s just primer. Next was paint and we prefer to spray shiplap if possible. This is literally the only photo I have of the painting process. Life goes on even with all the commotion associated with home improvement projects, as you can tell.

Mantle

Our mantle was pieced together into a box that would slide directly over the 2x4’s sticking out of the wall and then just screw down. The back of the mantle is open. The front and sides are 1x6’s and the top and bottom are 1x8’s. Don’t worry, we filled in those gaps with wood putty and sanded the whole thing before staining and mounting it. Sure a nice piece of reclaimed wood would have been awesome, but we don’t plan to stay here forever and this route gave us the look we wanted without blowing the budget.

More Mantle and Fireplace/TV

Full disclosure, it stayed just like this for a good long while. Things got busy. Every weekend was full of something and just nothing happened. Also if you look real close in this one you can see where the modem and router are hooked up there to the side of the fireplace.

Floating Shelves

The shelves are 2x12’s, if you’re wondering. We waited until the fireplace was done to measure so these could fit as close as possible. Tyler cut them to size, as usual I sanded and stained, and then the mounting was up to him. Those are stainless rods we cut to size and mounted in the studs. Basically you drill a hole into the studs and then hammer those bad boys in. Next you drill holes into the back side of your shelves an then slide them onto the rods. It is in no way as easy as that sounded. You force them on with a mallet, but then you can bet they’re not going anywhere. This method is cheaper if you have the right tools than most of the brackets you’ll find on the market for mounting floating shelves. Stain color is a 50/50 mix of Minwax Early American and Weathered Oak on both the shelves and the mantle.

Done

And then just like that it was done and I cried. Well, there was still some touch up to do, but the transformation was significant and it made me emotional to see my living room looking like a space an adult could be proud of.

Some things we used

Electronics <— click there to see it all together on Amazon (affiliate link)

65” OLED LG TV
Sonos Playbar
50” Touchstone Electric Fireplace
Some HDMI cables and things I know nothing about

Shiplap <— Lowe’s (affiliate link)

Paint <— we used Behr Ultra Paint, but had them tint it Sherwin Williams Alabaster because that’s what our trim is. We went for an eggshell sheen. (affiliate link)

Rods cut to size for shelf brackets (affiliate link)

Stain <— 50/50 mix of Minwax Early American and Weathered Oak and foam brushes for staining (affiliate link)

We weren’t compensated for using any of these items, but if you purchase something after clicking one of these affiliate links, we will receive a teeny tiny bit of commission from your purchase. Thanks for choosing to purchase through my links. You’re pretty kick ass for doing so.