At Least We Can See the TV Now (and Other Home Tales)

Fun fact about our home: When our Christmas tree is up, we cannot see our television. No kidding.

There is really only one place we can put our Christmas tree and it blocks our view of the TV. So we don’t watch TV from Thanksgiving to Epiphany (or whenever the tree goes up and down). We can move the television and put it on the piano bench if we REALLY want to see something, but apparently we don’t because I don’t think we turned it on in the family room once during the holiday season. I know for a fact we never moved it to watch something. (If you haven’t seen pictures of our house before, you can see them in the post Our Cozy Home Remodel.)

We can stream cable, Netflix, etc. on our individual laptops and Kindles and that is what we tend to do anyway. But cozy family time around the tree and fire and TV? It can’t happen in our home. We make the best of it, but it’s still a frustration for me (and David and Caroline).

We’ve tried the tree in two other places since we moved here. One (in the learning room) we didn’t like and it’s no longer possible after we changed our learning room into the library. The other location in the family room just didn’t work.

Our TV is tiny by today’s standards (30 inches) and mounting a TV over the fireplace falls into “over my dead body” territory for me personally. So we have a little built in bookcase and TV nook designed in the late 1990s and that’s where it goes.

The rooms are not very large in this house and it leaves me almost no options for moving furniture around. This is a problem for me (truly) because I like changing things up on a regular basis. A fresh look is a mental health boost for me. I don’t need new things. I just need what I have moved around. I failed to recognize when we bought this house how little flexibility we would have.

Whoever designed this house really didn’t think things through. For example, there is a heating vent in the library in front of the left window if you are looking out of the windows. It’s in a fine location. Our bedroom is directly above the library and the windows line up. But where did they put the heating vent in the master bedroom? A couple of feet in along the largest (outside) wall. So we cannot put our bed against the largest wall because we would have to close the only vent to the room. No heat (or AC) in a north corner, second floor bedroom in Michigan? Not an option.

Who would make such a clearly stupid design decision?

So I can’t change our bedroom around even though it is a relatively generously-sized room. The only room that has some flexibility is Caroline’s room and she has changed things up in there a few times.

It probably sounds like a little thing, but it’s not. I told David that this fact (along with a couple of other things) has made me realize that this is not our forever house. I mean, it could be if God wanted us to stay here for His bigger purposes. But if it is up to me, then I think we move one more time. How and when I have no idea. But I admit I feel restless like it is time to move on. I’m not sure if it is from the Lord or not so I’m praying. But even David and Caroline have mentioned how they would like some things differently and they are much less likely to seek out change like this. If it were feasible, I would move this year. But that’s another post for another day.

In between taking care of a sick husband and a daughter who I honestly think is still recovering from an emotionally draining year of dental procedures, I’ve been working on a post about my personal focus and goals in 2019. I realize everyone else posted their goals and such many days ago. Oh well. I posted my Getting Rid of 1,000 Things late last year, but I did follow through and complete it! Better to have a late plan that I execute than a plan in the heat of the moment when everyone else is doing them.

How is the post holiday life at your home?