What to do with a living room TV?
We don’t watch a lot of television. We’ll pick a series and watch an episode a night, but we generally only actively use it an hour a day, if that. That’s why we started buying Samsung’s Frame line. It is a regular TV, but when it is not being watched it displays artwork or photos surrounded by simulated mattes that can be customized by size and color. It isn’t going to fool an art critic or anyone paying close attention, but it is passable when the television is not the focus.
We knew we wanted a large mirror above the fireplace, so mounting at that location was ruled out. The walls are the original plaster applied over lathe boards. I didn’t feel good about punching holes in them and crossing my fingers that (a) a television would hold and (b) that the plaster wouldn’t crack or fall off in chunks.
A few months ago I ran across a photo of someone else’s Victorian living room. They placed their flatscreen TV on a large art easel. I started researching that possibility and discovered there was a brief time when Restoration Hardware and a few other companies sold items like that, but they have all been discontinued or are way too modern. BUT I also discovered there is a company that makes a wide range of picture frames for the Samsung TV we planned on buying. That lead me down a rabbit hole of research and planning.
Once I picked out the ornate gold frame, I knew the overall effect was going to be a little over the top. The question was whether it would turn out to be fun and fit the style of the room or if it was going to look ridiculous and junky.
Originally, I found some beautiful vintage easels online, but they were $1,500 to $3000. New easels weren’t that much less or were not what I wanted stylistically. Ultimately, I found one I liked online that was on clearance for a good price, but the shipping was as much as the easel. Grrrrr!
I was about to give up on buying it when I found out the company has an outlet an hour north of us. I called to see if they would ship it to their location (for free) and I’d pick it up from them. It turned out that the outlet had one left in stock. Yayyy!
I drove the hour, loaded the box into the car, and drove back home very pleased with my ingenuity and my score.
Once home, my self-congratulation abruptly ceased. I opened the box, so I could assemble the easel and was immediately met by a bright red cherry wood finish. I looked at the photo on the box and then went back to the store website’s description to confirm it was supposed to be a walnut brown. There wasn’t even an option to purchase it in cherry, but here it was.
Maybe it would be okay…then I saw Chelsea’s face. She said in a measured voice, “We don’t have anything else this color,” and walked away. It wouldn’t be okay.
Now what?
Fortunately, Chelsea was leaving for a business trip the next morning and would be gone four days. I did the only thing I could think of — I spent an entire day disassembling it into as many parts as possible and sanding the color off each piece. The day after, I stained the whole thing “antique walnut.” That left me one day to figure out how to mount the TV and construct/attach shelves to hold the Apple TV, Nintendo Switch box, speakers, etc.
It was much more time-consuming than it should have been, mainly due to the easel color not being correct out of the box. At the end of the day, I am very pleased with it as an object and more so as a flexible solution to a problem.