When There's A Monster In Your Living Room

Since we've lived in this house I've always loved that television and video games have been confined to the basement family room. I've loved that there was a living space in my home void of screens, where I could curl up with a book or a cup of tea and not worry about being disrupted by a distracting screen.

But my husband is a sucker for a 'great' deal.

And so, unfortunately, all good things come to an end.

I don't know who first told him about the government auction site {and thanks a lot, whoever you are} but he got caught up in it and made some bids on things we absolutely didn't need but that were "just so cool".

Thankfully, his bid for a huge scoreboard {think high school football field} did not win; however, his fight for an old SmartBoard from a closed-down Catholic school did.

Yay!

I was thrilled.

And by thrilled I mean annoyed.

BUT because I love him and because he was genuinely excited about it, I {mostly} kept my feelings silent and talked myself off the ledge by accepting that it would be fine in our very large basement - not infringing on the parts of our house that I take pride in.

Wrong!

This beast is HUGE! Like rent a U-Haul trailer to get it home HUGE. LIKE IT WON'T FIT DOWN THE BASEMENT STAIRS HUGE.

Ugh!

I tried to make the best of it. I tried to rearrange my small living room to accommodate this thing that was basically like fitting a Brontosaurus into a human-sized space. I tried to tell myself that I was okay with it - that it wasn't really affecting my relaxation - that I could ignore it easily when it wasn't turned on.

I tried.

I really, really did.

But no. Not a chance.

It threw off everything. It overlapped the window and that annoyed me. It was the first thing you saw when you approached the living room and that annoyed me. It forced the couch to be in a place that blocked what used to be a very open landing and that annoyed me. It was ugly. And that really annoyed me.

I mean...just look...

It's HUGE! And UGLY!

I tried for a whole week.

I really, really did.

But it not only threw off the peaceful balance of our homes main level - it turned my house into something I was embarrassed of.

Does that make me a monster?

I don't think so. But it does makes that ridiculous SmartBoard a monster.

So I took back my living room! 

And I did it without eliminating The Beast. 

It is amazing for watching movies on. It's totally like having our own little movie theatre. So it's not useless. Which meant I had to find a compromise.

So now the SmartBoard is pushed back in a corner by the coat closet where we can easily pull it out when we're in the mood for a NetFlix binge {it's conveniently on wheels}. It is NOT the main focus. It is not such a distraction. It's still ugly but it's no longer controlling my focus.

Ahhhhhhh....I can breathe again.

{Apologies for the grainy cellphone photos...it really does look nice in here again}