Now that I have successfully posted every single day of November for NaBloPoMo, it's time to dive right into Holidailies for December. And to start the month off with a bang, this morning Richard and I completely rearranged the living room.

I know this doesn't sound very exciting, but trust me when I say that it is. I have hated the layout in the living room pretty much since we moved in, but the location of the cable hook-up for the television (and yes, since we had this house custom built, the location is entirely our fault) has meant that we were really restricted in how we could lay out the furniture. Consequently, the living room has always felt small and just a bit claustrophobic, and when we have guests over, they have always been far more likely to congregate in the breakfast nook, preferring to perch awkwardly on wooden chairs and stairs instead of having using the more comfortable seating in the very uninspiring living room.

I used to think the reason I didn't much like the living room was because it was just such a small and awkwardly shaped room, and because all the furniture in there (with the exception of the piano, the lovely parson's table, and the mirror over the fireplace) is either second-hand, or cheap and crappy stuff that would look more at place in a college student's first apartment than in the home of two professional adults who are in their late 30's. But the more I stewed over the whole issue, the more I realized that it was more than just the collection of ugly, mismatched furniture; it was the way it was laid out. The very first thing that had to be done in order to fix it was to move the outlet for the cable. And that task was accomplished this morning by a very nice young man from DISH.

Shortly after he left, the rest of the task was accomplished, which was mainly dragging all the furniture all over the room (extremely easy to do when you have no carpetting, by the way) until suddenly a miracle occurred and instead of having a teeny tiny awkwardly shaped, cramped living room, it magically morphed into a living room with more open space than I had ever thought possible - a living room that I actually want to go sit in; a room that has plenty of space for the niece and nephews to play in when they come to visit, and space for the whole family to gather and open presents when they all descend on our house next year.

There is still, of course, the matter of the cheap, ugly furniture. But it doesn't feel like so much of a problem any more. For the first time in years I have a living room that I actually like.

Tis the season for Holidailies