Countdown to the New Old House: Ambush

While showing my parents the progress on the house, I commented on the fact that the electrical outlet above the mantel  is too high to be useful for lighted Christmas garlands and the like:

"It's exactly in the center of where you would hang something over the fireplace."

Mom agreed.

The side of Spouse's jaw did that twitchy thing. 

"Do you think we could get Carlos to move it down, closer to the mantel, so we could disguise it behind a framed photo but still access it come Christmastime without having to take the art down?"

Another twitch.

Finally, he spoke:

"Um, the  outlet is where you would put an outlet if you were going to mount a TV over a fireplace."

"But we're not . . . oh, WAIT.  We could put the TV over the fireplace.  The big painting that used to hang up there is going in our bedroom, and if we didn't need the armoire in the corner for the TV, I could put the new painting on that wall - actually, it would look really good over there.  I could get a skirted round end table, like I've been wanting, and a new table lamp, and put those over in the corner, under the painting, and we could put the leather armchair and the Parsons chair on either side and make a new seating area."

Spouse's face remained neutral - almost. Twitch, twitch.

My dad looked bemused, and asked Spouse if, perhaps, he knew offhand the maximum flat-screen size that would fit over the fireplace.

Seventy inches, Spouse responded - a bit too readily.

Ah . . . so this is an ambush.

I'm not complaining, because we really need more space for seating, and the space-hogging armoire that housed the old-school TV became kind of superfluous when we finally joined the 21st century.  Plus, it's a rustic pine armoire.  I ceased to be a rustic pine girl at the turn of the century, as well.

So, added to the never-ending house shopping list are the following:

End table
Skirt for end table
Lamp for end table
Wireless DVD
Flat-screen television, not to exceed seventy inches in diameter

I tell myself that Spouse has worked hard to keep the restoration moving, so he deserves the TV of his choice. And I deserve my seating area.

Also, the armoire hogged a lot of wall real estate, and I need that real estate, on account of how:

I added can lights to better spotlight framed portraits and art on shadowed walls;

The can lights begat light switches; and

Carlos the Electrician put those light switches at eye level, which - coincidentally - is where I hung quite a bit of our framed portraits and art.

So now, to a certain extent, I have can lights spotlighting . . . light switches.

Fun, huh?  Thinking about putting frames around the switch plate covers.  Just to be ironic.

But now I can move some things around, which would not be a bad thing - stuff was too closely clustered together before.

Meanwhile, twelve year-old is over the moon, because:

Wireless DVD players only come in one variety - Blu-Ray;

That means that we can start collecting Blu-Ray movies;

That also means that he is getting a slightly used, non-Blu-Ray DVD player for his room.

Don't thank me, kid - thank your dad.  And Carlos the Electrician.