Rip out phony wall and cabinet and do double duty...t v and console with electric fireplace

Thank you, Judy! I should have specified, we are not interested in moving the TV over the fireplace. We would prefer to continue using the TV cabinet that was hand made by my father in law, plus having the TV over a fireplace isn’t ideal for viewing angle. I’m mostly looking for material and color suggestions. Was your image just for the style or do you also think the off-white stones and white wood is a good choice for the room? We will be going with a gas insert.

do you need a fireplace? I think that room would look much better without one, and electric fireplaces are not realistic enough to make it worth the cost of redoing all of that. I would only go through that effort if you had your heart absolutely set on having a real fire -- wood or gas. a couple of other design conundrums: I don't like the way the current one is so close to the window on the right. and planning on having a TV next to a fireplace looks out of balance. unless you really want a fireplace, I'd just scratch it altogether.

if storing your equipment is an issue get rid of the FP and get a wider TV stand.

you need to lower the height of your TV a few inches too, BTW. having it overlap the windowsill looks awkward.

I am not sure about cabinets on corner wall. I would better go to dry bar wall for it.

Thank you, ILoveMod! I totally agree with several of your points. The TV is overlapping the window and it’s weird! But it’s the correct viewing height from the couch that we have and my husband is extremely into correct TV viewing. His father made us that cabinet so that is not going to be replaced or moved, unfortunately. We cannot move it slightly to the left due to an air vent down there.

We cannot install a wood fireplace as it’s illegal where we live, but we do plan to do gas. My husband really wants it. I agree its going to be super awkwardly close to the window. The whole room design is awkward in my opinion, but it’s what the house came with when we bought it.

Seems possible to tie fp stain color with FIL's unit. Same stain / color.

Some kind of ?

What kind of fp - gas or electric? about how wide?

Hi everdebz! We’re planning on a gas insert. That current corner stuff is 63” wide for reference, but I don’t think we’ve settled on a width for anything new yet

the shape of fireplace Celery posted might fit better, but make sure it's narrow enough to not touch the window on the right, and take it all the way to the ceiling (no gap above it). what if somebody built it in a way that it looks like tile up the front, but has a hidden door that opens to a cabinet inside? it could be hard to get that to look totally seamless though. it would take a skilled carpenter for sure.

so instead of trying to create storage in there, is there any way to put the equipment somewhere else instead? I see you have a bookcase off to the left. can you replace it with a bigger bookcase/cabinet combo and store your stuff in there? or just put it entirely somewhere else in the house? (if it's router / WIFI related, there are boosters that work really well.)

RE TV ergonomics: you do you. we also have a large TV and I suffer from chronic neck pain. ours is a little lower than yours and very comfortable. but if you already tried that and didn't like it, I understand! saving your neck is more important.

I totally don’t care where the TV goes, and the previous owners totally had it mounted above that white cabinet. My husband, however, is over here with angles and ideals and whatnots. He’s been annoyed I put a clock over the door and forced his surround sound speaker behind us, so I suspect that will be modified shortly.

As for the stuff in the cabinet, it’s not a router actually. Its a boatload of other hubs and smart controls and speaker stuff, some of which hardwire into the TV and that cabinet. I can ask my husband about moving it to the other side, but it’s shocking how much stuff we have hidden back there.

I was definitely planning something to go all the way to the ceiling, and ideally be hidden, yes. My father in law suggested a french cleat for the picture that’s there as a hidden entry to some interior shelving instead of cabinet doors. If my husband doesn’t mind lifting it off every time something needs poked that could work. We absolutely want quality work done (And if my father in law wasn’t so far away I’d hire him to do it!)

We are mostly looking for color and material suggestions. Will more wood be too dark over there? Should we incorporate granite to tie into the bar? When do I tell my husband the Internet says we shouldn’t do this? 😂

one other thing-- if you shifted your entire seating area and the TV to the left, so the TV is centered between the two windows, this whole room would look better overall. do you have room for that? you'd need to find a new home for your mountain artwork.

Finding a new home for our Uluru photography is no problem, moving the furniture over is the problem... Sigh.

I feel your pain. I don't have a single room that's easy to decorate, there is always a window or something in a weird spot. it's always something, right?

So many things ugh. It's not even just that buffet over there, its that stupid air vent. I know that's moveable, too, but that's a little bigger of a scope than we wanted to do right now. Maybe in the future, though! I'd love to center the TV cabinet between the windows and flip the furniture mirror image I think. But yeah, we can't rightly cover that floor vent. That would also give any corner fireplace more breathing room for sure. This room is so obnoxious. I like it, but it's really awkward.

Hi EG!

I hate to say it but maybe that TV stand just doesn't work for that space? I know it's important to you, but can it be repurposed somewhere else in the home? or maybe it can be modified by adding legs to clear the vent. you could put a redirector on the vent to get air to flow out from under there.

I’m definitely open to both repurposing or adding legs, great suggestions. Apparently misunderstood the issue with the height of the TV. It isn’t viewing, it’s that that’s the lowest he could set it to clear the center speaker because he has to have the perfect audio.

Anyway, something else I noticed looking at the room last night is that those two small windows are centered to the corner wall. If we take out that corner the windows will not be evenly spaced anymore! Buh. I honestly just want to take out the corner and move the windows to the right so we can center between them and have the full length of the room.

So... aside from everything else, I still hate that corner. Forgetting about the fireplace and other wishlists for a minute, what would you do with that corner in general? Rip it out and leave it open and move everything to the right? Put in a big hutch or cabinet? open shelving?

if the TV was centered under the right window, that would look a bit better (even if it was still too high up). but of course that won't work unless the FP is gone. that is one of the (many) reasons why a fireplace just does not belong in that spot. I feel like your husband has too many "must haves" and could compromise on at least one thing in order to make this space look better. I feel like the fireplace would be an easy one to cross off the list since it wouldn't even be real.

could you appease him with some other fun toy? like a really awesome gas fire pit in the backyard?

if the TV cabinet was modified to take the base off, that would move the entire thing down enough so the TV clears the window frame and you still have the speaker where it needs to be. is it possible that the base could be removed in a way that it could be put back on one day if you wanted?

(BTW, I feel your pain. my husband and I are constantly trying to balance equipment with style. it's hard!)

oh, I didn't see your final question! I'd rip it out, fix any drywall damage, paint, and leave that corner bare for a while. then decide if there's a piece of furniture or something that would look good there. maybe a big plant? or replace the white chair with another couch? (or two chairs side by side.)

that room will look soooo much better with that corner clear. the angled ceiling is so nice and I feel like the FP is interrupting it.

is it possible the networking equipment could go somewhere else in the house?

Would you believe we already have a real outdoor wood burning fireplace that you can see directly out across from that back slider?

Yeah I like the idea of taking out the corner and centering the TV under the right window. It will probably still drive me crazy that they're not spaced properly in the room's length, but maybe I'll get over it. Or eventually put something into the corner to make the windows seem less stupidly placed...

Have a minute, and to say I'm confused, but.. what happens if you move wood unit next to tv, and remove red items? create a simple, horizontal line? It'd be helpful if initial photo showed with arrow-descriptions what is what, and what has to remain where it is... !?

@everdebz I’m not sure I follow your question. Which red items? All we wanted to do originally is knock down the corner area (the white lower cabinet, the black granite shelf above it, and the 45 degree drywall above that). The items that we hoped to keep stored in that corner are not visible in the photo; they are inside the white cabinet and behind the drywall.

Great suggestions. The very biggest problem will be what to do with the dozen hubs/controls and wires that’s hiding in that corner. Sigh.

You can probably go wireless on many (if not all) of these hubs and controls. A good electronics store can bring you up to date on what's available. The rest can go in the TV cabinet or in your bar.

If you still need to have cables/wires along, install cord covers that can run along your baseboard or at the ceiling. Paintable, inconspicuous and easy to install.

I meant the photo art with rock landscape! rather I meant to empty the wall and area. At myself, I laugh cause it's not big, just covering up what I don't understand.... hate to admit. ;)

what are the hubs/controls? like I said before, is it possible they don't even have to go in that room? for example, is it the router so you can get WIFI to the TV? WIFI boosters work well these days (we use Eero, and it's great. we can even wirelessly stream 4K in our basement).

or if it's not that, then what is it? maybe we can help!

Floor vents can be moved rather easily, it seems the easiest solution.