friday fix: mom and dad's media cabinet

summer travel has forced us to take this show on the road. so we're spreading the fix love around the country. first stop, mom and dad's house.

here's their media cabinet. the room itself has two story ceilings, so this thing is big, and while the arrangement is nice, it's been like this for years. we decided to switch things up.

first, we took everything out. then we removed the shelves dividing the upper and lower rows of cubbies (you can see the top shelves are glass and the bottom are oak) and placed the glass ones on the lower level and discarded the oak ones. this opened things up tremendously. then we added most of the books back, but in like groups, and along the bottom. they have a heavy, dark look, so that helps ground the arrangement.

here's a good close up of the shelf switch out. next, we brought in smaller clusters of items, scavenged from around the house, using other books as levels.

one of the architectural corbels went from cherry wood to a creamy white, and a couple of inexpensive vases and a frame from michael's lightened things up.

here's the result! much lighter and less cluttered, don't you think?

and now mom's happy! and that's all that really matters, isn't it. happy birthday mom!