Boooorrring Photo of My Living Room; or, how to spice up a corner?

I’m kind of all over the place when it comes to decorating our house.  I start one project, get thinking about another one, find something amazing thrifting or garage sale-ing which sets my creative gears in motion for yet something else, have a few pieces of furniture in the garage/shed waiting for the right spot to open up in the house---just like everyone else, right??  I’m sure there are many that have much more decorating multi-tasking going on than me (many!!!).  But still, my husband probably thinks I’m rather crazy…in a completely endearing way…of course.  :)  I am  still planning the big girl bedroom, although very slowly.  I also have a project involving stain going on in the garage. 
Which leads me to this picture of our living room in its current state this morning.  I pushed a basked of (clean) laundry out of the picture before I took it.  You’re welcome!


I’m sure there are many questions that could be asked now:
Weren’t you just talking about planning a big girl bedroom…are you easily distracted or something?
Why do you have a TV from the Dark Ages?
Why is the wall purpl-ish?
Do you ever clean your TV screen?
Is that an aquarium stand that the TV is sitting on?  (yes, yes it is)
All good questions I am sure.  But for today, I’m asking this question:
How does one decorate an awkward corner such as this?
This has been the burning question at the back of my mind this morning.  See all the outlets, switch, AC controls?  I’m trying to figure out how to camouflage them somehow, or at least make them look more intentional.  I realize our TV stand has much to be desired.  I was trying to give it away  before we moved but no one would come and take it off our hands for free.  We figured we can always burn it if we can’t get rid of it any other way (in that big fire pit we now have in the backyard!).  I would like to get a cabinet that will hide our TV completely (for reasons I’m sure you can completely understand!). 
I’m a very visual person, so off I went to find some pictures of corners that aren’t so embarrassingly boring.  It proved rather difficult to find corners that both looked nice and had a TV in them.  I’m sure for many having the TV out front and center would be no biggie, but we don’t really watch it that much and I personally hate how it looks so it seems like a good idea to hide it somehow.  Most of the pictures I found looked something like this:

(source)

Admittedly better than what we have now but not quite what I was going for.  I’m looking for something a little more along these lines, but with a (hidden)TV in there somewhere:

(source)

(Just a Girl Blog)

These corners are pretty and planned and less like the black holes of the room (or in our case, purple holes).  I love the collected look of these gallery corners too.  I’m kind of a sentimentalist so I’m always keeping little things that mean something to us.  This comes in handy when you’re trying to put together an arrangement with meaning in it!

I guess I’ll have to keep my eyes open on Craigslist and while thrifting to see if I can find a cabinet or other type of storage unit that our bulky TV will fit in (and that already is or has the ability to become pretty!).  Hmm, add that to the list!  I don’t need an excuse to go thrifting but I’ll always take one.  :)

Meanwhile, I know you’re wanting to pin my *gorgeous* living room corner so I’ll leave you to it!