Lindybarts~ This is only the 2nd photo I've seen of your home (the other was your gorgeous master bath/travertine.... oh, and it seems you were the one with the huge beautiful island that at first you thought was too dark... was that you?). Oh my word, girlfriend, this is just beautiful! I love your fireplace, and your cool beams. Your built ins are just lovely. Your house is beautiful. Have you linked us to more photos in an album somewhere? I want to see more! ;o) Sorry Meagan, didn't mean to hijack your thread. I wish I had photos for you..... but mine is just a distant dream. I'm not sure when we'll get to the built-ins stage.... it will be a while.

Thanks all for some good ideas! I had originally considered growing the wall with flanking 8 cube bookcases - and possibly a bridge - trying to give it more of a built in look - but ultimately felt it was going to be too heavy of a look (for lack of better term). At first I wasn't convinced with aktillery's gallery of unmatched frames/items, but it's grown on me. I see there are actually two bases used to achieve the extra extended foundation - where ours is a single 84' cabinet. We actually had a 96" but it was damaged and was sent back. These are unusually large size single pieces - most media centers don't get that big. I don't see adding more in our case. There's really not room for it. In this photo, I've temporarily inserted a couple of ficus trees to fill in the sides as an example of one idea - my thought was to go with bamboo however, and fill the RH side corner with a large palm.. I also swapped the Camhporwood chest with the larger wicker one, and added pillows, which seems to balance better. So, for now it looks like maybe going with filling a gallery across the empty wall above the TV and a bit down the outsides. The sub is wired so will have to figure out a way to hide/decorate around it. Worst case I could make a fabric cube cover/table. The wall color could maybe be darker but that starts to drift away from the theme a bit. Thanks again for the ideas so far! :-)

Sometimes you just have to be creative and think outside of the box in order to get the look that you really want. Sure the billy bookcases are a bit shallow, but they aren't the only book cases available at Ikea and Ikea will give you the best bang for your buck. ALL of these built ins are IKEA, all the diyer did was add trim and mouldings to the fronts to cover the seams. Some are modern in style, others more traditional but the billies aren't just "bookcases", they come with a lot of options, like glass doors. Several of these actually look like they were professionally done.

Yes, I love diy art. Get a piece of mdf cut to size. Then paint the mdf a solid background color. After that has dried, get a kid between 3-4 years . Give him/her 3 colors of paint and 10 minutes with instructions to paint a picture of the family. Use wall paint, samples are fine. You will end up with an amazing piece of abstract art. Try with older kids and the results will not be as nice. Older than 4yo and they are too good at drawing actual shapes. Young children are great abstract artist.