Smaller Scale for Bigger Living

A big change happened the other day.  One that we knew would be coming sooner rather than later but is quite a transition nevertheless.

We got rid of our big TV.

Now our old TV was something around 60" wide.  Frankly, it was too big for the space that we had for it.  In our 110-year-old house it didn't really fit.  We had to sort of wedge it into a corner between the fireplace and the radiator box. It was very modern looking, dominated the room and, at times, seemed to dominate our lives as well.

But over the past few years we have been lessening it's hold on us.  I hate paying for cable and I really don't like much of what runs on TV and cable stations anyways.  If find it noisy and intrusive. So over a year we started cutting it out.  First we eliminated a bunch of stations then we decided to get rid of the cable altogether.   We still have the XBox game system which also allows us to stream the Instant View movies from NetFlix.  This is so great.  We have the most basic NetFlix rental and get the 1 DVD at a time which is plenty, but we can watch the Instant Queue movies over and over.  We have our DVD player too, streaming radio and Hulu and the free documentaries site too.   We definitely do not feel as if we are doing without entertainment wise.

The giant TV was still squatting there in the corner of the living room but it was on its last legs.  It had not been aging well. In the past few months the color had gone a bit wonky and the latest issue was that it would turn off repeatedly during a show.  It was not going to be long until we either had to pay to fix it or it died completely.

We decided it was time to find it a new home so we listed it and it's stand on CraigsList.  Of course we gave a full disclosure of the TV and it's problems but we also priced it very low.  We had a buyer that same day.  I'm not sure why we were surprised.  We've sold other equipment the same way that was even older.  Maybe these folks have better skills than we do!

So once the behemoth was out of the room, it did look a bit barren.  We did have a second TV, a 32" LCD (I think?!?) that was in the bedroom and was never used.  Once we had gotten rid of the cable we never bothered with it. That now was moved into the living room onto a much smaller TV stand that also goes better with the look of the house.

The smaller screen has taken some getting used to but that is offset by the much clearer picture... and the fact that it doesn't shut down 4 times within a 60 minute show.  We also have more space in the bedroom.  The smaller TV used to sit on top of my desk.  It now feels airier and more peaceful without it.

What's going next?