Q*Bert

We actually have a couple of different areas in our living room that are ripe for an accent or feature wall.  I mentioned the wall between the living room and kitchen here, but the wall our television goes on is another stand alone wall that we could do something fun with.

Here it is on moving day:

There's that pink.

We painted the hideous pink backgrounds about a week after moving, but our 46" television wouldn't fit on the counter without removing some of the vertical shelving pieces.  So down the one on the right went.  Our TV fit pretty well in the large opening, but we had our components on the counter and it looked pretty low rent.  

After the success of the wood wall in the basement bathroom, we thought we'd try it again.  But after looking around on Pinterest for awhile, I found something much, much cooler.

Prepare yourselves for the Q*Bert Wall...

But first, the backstory.

IN PROGRESS:  We've taken the shelves out and are getting ready
to start!  I just included this for the Vera photo bomb :)

IN PROGRESS:  We let Will draw something on the wall for a time
capsule.  He chose Plex from Yo Gabba Gabba.  He's 10.

To create the all mighty Q*Bert, we bought 4 sheets of luan plywood for $9 a sheet and cut 2 of them into diamonds.  Then we laid them out in a cubish pattern atop the other 2 sheets and glued it all together.  Here it is all laid out and ready to install.

IN PROGRESS:  We didn't think this step through.   We assembled it in the basement
and then tried to carry it back upstairs - it was pretty fragile.
We lost a few diamonds in the transfer.
But we just glued them right back on.  NBD.

So pretty cool right?  We left a few diamonds off so we could screw it directly into the wall.  Then we glued the missing diamonds back on and put a coat of poly on it.

GETTING CLOSER:  How cool is this??

I forgot to mention a few prep tasks that were necessary before we could attach this baby to the wall.  John had to move the power and cable outlets up on the wall so we could mount the TV to the wall on a bracket and not see the cords.  He also needed to build a couple of shelves to put inside the firewood storage area to hold the DVR and Blu-Ray player.  

Once the power/cable stuff was taken care of we were ready to attach the bracket and hang the TV.  I'll save you the drama of having to run out and buy little things that allowed the cords to make turns (?) and the very funny (now) incident of getting the TV hung and realizing that we didn't plug it in.  That was fun.  But here it is hung, plugged in, and ready to go.

AFTER:  Isn't he handsome?  I like how you can see different patterns
at different times of the day.  We're not sure if we are going to put
anything else on the wall.  We don't want to hide too much of the pattern.

AFTER:  Here is a side view so you can see the cool pattern from a different
angle.  And also so you can see our cool IKEA Maskros light in the stairwell.

So there you have it.  Oh, wait.  The cabinets!  We hated the way the doors were hung unevenly, it drove me crazy on a daily basis.  Since we needed to take the doors off to rehang them, we decided to modernize the 80's oak with an ebony stain.  I used my miracle product (see below) in Onyx.   John reattached the doors at the proper height and we're in business.

We'll decide after living with the wall (and possibly getting a different TV - we're seeing dark spots...) if we are going to build shelves.  I'm thinking not, but I'm not shutting that door yet.  But for now we'll just enjoy the view :)