Shelving Brings out The Robot in Him

We have been mulling over what to do in the two nooks next to the faux fireplace. We needed to find a solution to store components, dvd's, cd's, etc. We contemplated built-in's but that would be an arm and a leg. My friend "S" had a good point. We would be dropping a lot of cash for something we can't take with us the day we move out. Good way of looking at it. On the other hand, it could add value. Built-in's are cherished in this town. People go nuts over them.

We went to IKEA. Three times. We looked at the Billy Bookcase with doors. Each of the three times we kept leaving empty handed because we weren't convinced. The Billy Bookcase had the exact measurements we were looking for. The width was off by an inch but that wasn't a big deal because the height and depth were perfect. It had glass doors and it would have been flush with the mantel giving it a finished look. So basically it would have looked like built in cabinets. But the bookcase was not going to be able to hold all of The Mister's components.

The problem with the components? Well some would have to stick out further than the mantel. So that axed the built-in's because they would have looked funny sticking out further than the fireplace. The IKEA bookcases were also out of the question because the depth was 11 inches and we needed way more depth than that.

We looked at the space again and we realized how much we loved the blue on the wall. And then in clicked. Shelves. Stark white shelves! But since the shelves would have to be deep to hold the various components, we knew we couldn't let them be the width of the nook or they would look like incomplete built-in's. The width of the nook was 32 inches so we kept the width of the shelves at 24 inches.

We installed the shelving and The Mister organized all his components/toys. He spoke like a robot the whole time he put his stuff away. It is safe to say that I was more scared than annoyed. It looked liked he was handling premature babies the way he held all of those things. He cradled the X-Box onto the shelf talking to it and putting it down oh so gently as to not wake it. When he got to the last shelf I went over to hand him our DVD player. He started blinking rapidly which can only mean one thing. He's up to no good. He then told me he could put it in as a place holder. "Place holder for what?", I asked. "Well the DVD player doesn't have an HDMI output so if I do connect it you're going to see the cables." He knows one of my peeves is exposed cables! I asked him if there was a way around it. His answer? A PS3. It would have no cables showing because it has an HDMI output and it has a Blue Ray player. Sneaky Snake.