A video tour of my living room, which is now almost done.

Yesterday morning, I made a video of my living room setup. Thought I’d share it with folks who want to take the tour:

I admit that I sometimes refer to this as my “trophy room.” That’s because the red leather sofa, TV, and stereo surround-sound system came from the condo my wasband bought as a place to live during the week when he worked in Phoenix. To this day, I’m not sure why he agreed to let me have them. The only reason I included them on the list of personal property I wanted was so I could give them up in the bargaining process. But he agreed to the whole damn list — after stewing on it for months — in exchange for me moving out of the house. Joke’s on him: I had to leave anyway for my summer work and my RV and helicopter were already onsite in Washington.

The leather sofa is very comfortable and has a sofa bed tucked into it. My ex-sister-in-law, who I’m still in contact with occasionally, gave me two of the four pillows on it as a housewarming gift. The rug, storage “bar” behind the sofa, and black leather cushions on the chair are new from IKEA. The lamps are heirloom items — more on those in a future blog post. The rest of what’s in this video are a mix of new items I bought over the past three years and items moved to Washington from my old home in Arizona.

The room is almost done. I just need two things:

• Windowsills. I have temporary window sills in place under most windows. I was going to make them out of 1×12 lumber and actually finished a few of them, but my friend Don offered me slabs of wood that match the tables he made for me. I can then make windowsills out of that. Trouble is, Don needs to get his friend with the bandsaw on the program to get me the slabs. Then I need to cut, stain, and finish them. It’s a big project and I don’t expect to have it done anytime soon. So I have trimmed 1×10 and 1×12 planks for temporary use. I probably won’t bother staining them, so I can use them for something else in the future.
• Coffee table. Don made me custom TV table and end tables. They were cut from power poles that survived a fire back in 2010 or 2011 near the Rocky Reach Dam, upriver from Wenatchee. They have a lot of personality, with actual scorch marks on the live edges. I like them so much I’ve asked Don to make me a matching coffee table. We discussed it in some detail yesterday. I hope to get it within a month or so.

The jury is still out on the rug. I bought another one at Pier 1 that I’d like to try. This one might be okay with a coffee table over it.

And yes, I know I should get a universal remote. But honestly: I don’t watch very much television. The view out the windows is much more enjoyable.

The place is coming together. It’s already a far more pleasant home than the one I left behind in Arizona.