Modern Living Room Setup Tech Transformation 2024

(mellow music) - What's up my friends. Mike, again. Glad to have you guys back. In this video, I'm gonna go over my updated modern living room setup for 2022. So a lot of changes has been made since my last living room setup video. We've completely shifted things around, and transformed the setup to a more modern, and less cluttered aesthetic. And we added new tech to automate, and simplify our daily lives. So we put a lot of thought into this design, and after three months of figuring out what

works best, I'm super excited to show you guys the build process, tips and tricks, and all the key decisions that I made, to make this space the most enjoyable family space for us to hang out in. Hopefully this video will give you guys some good ideas and inspirations, as to what can be the best living room setup for yourself. And by the way, everything is linked in the description. So if there's something that you liked in this video, you can go check that out. And if you guys find this video h

elpful, remember to like and subscribe, as that really helps me out. And without further ado, let's get started. So let's quickly begin, and go over the challenges, and problems to solve for the design. Before, our setup was nice, we had all the essentials down, but everything was kind of a bit mispositioned, it seemed like there was a lot of stuff everywhere, and the overall look was a bit old fashioned, especially that green couch and the fireplace. Also the TV blocked the two windows behind i

t, and the light coming from the patio doors was causing a lot of glare on the TV screen. So to fix all of this, we're going to need to reposition the setup, and remove a lot of things. So we started the process with removing the couch, and clearing up the space to get a fresh start. And the first major upgrade we decided to go with, is the sofa from Cozey. These are sofas in a box, and they are completely modular. So you can build your sofa in any configuration that you want to fit your space.

I decided to get the five-seater with the corner, along with the chaise and the ottoman, so, there's a lot of boxes. And being the resourceful person that I am, I got a few friends to help out with the build, and I gotta say, it was quite a fun bonding experience. It's like building Legos for adults. Each sofa module has hardware on the side, that secures it in place with the other modules, so everything fitted quite snugly. And once they were connected, there were more ways to secure them, with

the hooks and the leg attachments on the bottom. So I really like that we didn't need any tools to put this together, and once we got the hang of it, building the rest of the sofa was easy. I think if you're building a smaller couch, it would be doable with one or two people, but because the configuration I decided was a lot bigger, it was very nice to get help. It definitely made the experience more satisfying to see the sofa come together, and save me a ton of time. So big thanks to all my my

hardworking friends, that helped build the sofa with me. And next, we moved the TV over to the wall by the fireplace. It's not the safest thing to do, but we moved it together with the KALLAX shelf, but that's why having extra muscle around is nice. After setting everything up, we played around with the arrangement, and flipped the entire sofa to see if it worked better to watch TV, and it turns out, we had it right the first time. I think it's really important to try these things out before se

ttling in. After a few weeks of actually using the sofa with the TV, I'm happy to say that the sofa is super comfortable, as the cushions are just so cozy to sit on. My wife and I really enjoyed our time hanging out on it while watching TV and gaming. However, when we have people over, we found out that that this configuration breaks the neck of the people sitting on the side, trying to look at TV. The best sitting position was to face the TV directly. So once again, we had to reconfigure it, an

d that's the major benefit of going with a modular sofa. It can really adapt to your style over time, and I'm glad to say that we haven't changed it since then. Moving along, we're gonna work on the TV area. Right now, there's just too many things going on, and that's because there's a lot of stuff on that shelf. So we relocated it, and replaced it with a media unit that I got from Rove Concepts. This is the Nillson TV Stand. I absolutely love the clean look of this unit. The white and the wood

material matches the color of my hardwood floors perfectly. Also, I was specifically looking for a stand with legs, that looked like this, so that it's easy to clean underneath. I also replaced the little plastic glide thing on the legs with felt pads instead, I find them a lot more useful for cable management, which you'll see later on. I'm really happy with my choice, because I think just by adding this piece, it instantly modernizes the look of the space. Next up, we're gonna make the setup e

ven cleaner by mounting the TV onto the wall. We did a lot of measuring to make sure we get it right. We also found some electrical wires in the wall, so we had to be extra careful with this. I find it helpful to visualize where the studs are, by using sticky notes. It's also useful to get someone to direct you where the center of the TV is to eye-level, to mount it to the right height. And the reason why I'm all geared up to drill a hole in the wall, is because my house is a bit older, and we d

on't know what the material of the wall was made of, so we had to be extra cautious of that as well. As for the mount, I'm using a generic one that I found on Amazon. I hope it's gonna be as strong as my biceps to hold up the TV. (laughs) Just kidding. Remember to like and subscribe, if you're liking the video so far. So installing everything was pretty straightforward. The TV hooks onto the mount, and there are screws to secure it on as well. After all that work, I definitely think that the wal

l mounting is worth doing, because whenever I see a wall-mounted TV done right, I find that it adds a minimalist, and modern style to the room. Moving along, let's talk about adding tech to the space, starting with the lighting. I decided to add light strips to the setup to brighten up the room. And this is why felt pads are awesome. Oh yeah. I can easily get behind to do my cable management without scratching my floors. I find that adding backlight to the TV really helps reduce eye strain. I ha

ve these light strips installed on my monitor as well in my desk setup, and I always have them on. It actually makes a huge difference. I'm also adding them to the media unit as well, and I actually like to install them with tape at first, instead of using the adhesive on the back, because it's easier for me to adjust it while I'm installing it. The tape is pretty secure, and you really can't see it at all. Also, when installing the lights, I think it's important to note that I always try avoid

doing it in a way that shows the individual LEDs, that makes it look really tacky in my opinion. So when done correctly, it should have a nice diffused glow on the wall. And I really like these light strips, because they can display different colors at once on the same strip, this gives it a more dynamic look. Next, I saw an opportunity to install lights in the storage display. I placed a light bar in each box, and shot the light backwards to get diffused lighting. And I was quite surprised that

it looked so good. As for cable management, the goal is to not be able to see any cables when you're looking at the setup from the front. I didn't want it to drill anything in the back of the unit, so I use these self-adhesive wall hooks to hold my power bar in place, and not have it on the ground. Next, I have to deal with these wires from the TV. I got a cable cover to hide them. And instead of drilling holes to secure it, I used 3M Dual Lock Fasteners on the metal part of the bottom of the T

V mount. This is a super handy tool, it's super strong, and a month later, it's still holding up. Anyways, this may seem like a lot of work, but I actually quite enjoy doing this. It's like a 20 to 30-minute investment, but every day I get to enjoy the satisfaction of having a cable-free setup. So this is what it looks like, and I'm really happy with the cable management for this setup. It's really little things like this, that makes the entire setup tidy and organized. So if this is something y

ou haven't worked on yet, it's definitely worth doing, as I think it makes a massive improvement for most setups. Anyways, I could have painted the cable hider as well, to match the wall, but the reason why I decided to make it a temporary thing, is because we're actually going to renovate the entire wall in the future. We've worked with a interior designer, and this is the render of what it's going to look like. And it's just too much to put in this video, so if you wanna see that video in the

future, make sure you like and subscribe to the channel, with the notification bell on. Next up, when people come over, they are always amazed with my magic curtains, that open and close by themselves. Yes, it's pure good old magic. Just kidding. I'm actually using the SwitchBot Curtain, it was an easy way to retrofit my existing curtains. And I actually added the solar panel to it on the back as well, so that I won't ever have to charge it. Installing this was super simple, I just placed it on

the curtain rod, and secured it into place, and after some calibration on the app, it just works like magic. So of course I installed it this way, just so you can see it in action. I actually have it installed behind the curtain, so that it's not noticeable, to have that magic effect, and so that the solar panel can actually get light from the windows to charge the units. I got these curtains scheduled to open at 9:00 AM in the morning, and close at 8:30 PM at night. Also I've connected it with

SwitchBot's remote, so that whenever I wanna watch movies, I can control it from there as well. It's the perfect device for a lazy guy like me. Next on the list, to maintain a dust-free, and clean environment in my living room and house, I'm using the Roborock S7+ vacuum robot. This little guy has quite a bit of tech packed into it, making it a smart, deep cleaning machine. The coolest thing is that when it's cleaning around, it actually creates a map of the environment, and can identify rooms u

sing LiDAR technology. This has been super useful, because I can set no-go zones to certain areas, like this space behind the couch. This is where my baby mat is, I usually play with my son there, and he crawls all around it, so I don't want the robot running over it at all. I also set another no-go zone over here, so that it can clean under the media unit, but avoid scratching my subwoofer on the floor. As we're cleaning, the S7 actually uses an all-rubber brush, making it more durable. And the

suction power is also pretty strong, to get all the dust, food and hair on the floor. The convenient thing about this is that it also mops the floor as well. 'Cause let's be honest, who likes doing that? It has a water tank and mop that you can add to the back. It's smart enough to recognize carpet, so it will lift the mop automatically. This feature has been really effective cleaning up the entrance area, where there's a lot of dried on dirt on the floor, combined with the mats. And I gotta sa

y, this thing makes my house pretty darn clean after it's done it's round. It's even smart enough to auto empty the dust bin at the dock. When it does this, the dust goes through a multi-stage filtration system, to keep the air in my home clean. And that's quite important to me, because I have a baby around. The dirty stuff ends up in a dust bag, which can hold up to eight weeks of dust, and the bag seals itself up when I take it out. So having this little helper around has really made my life e

asier, and saved me a bunch of time. Also, I reused the shelf that I had before, and took out the bottom shelf, so that I can make a little home for the robot. This way, I can make use of the vertical space to put whatever I want on it. The other thing I did was install lights under the sofa. This might be a bit overkill, but I thought it was a fun project to do. I used a longer version of the same light strips that I used on the media unit, I think it's around 33 feet long. I taped it to this U

channel that I found from Home Depot, and then I used zip ties to secure it around the feet of the sofa. I was really surprised that this worked, and that it wasn't really noticeable at all when you looked at the couch. This project did take a bit of time, but the result was very nice. It gave a subtle glow around the edge of the sofa. It's another thing that really adds to the wow factor. However, some people did say it was too much, but you know what? I don't care. I think it's awesome. To po

wer it up, I did have to use a long power cord, and tape it along the wall, as well as secure it on the floor using gaff tape beside the couch, so that no one trips over it. And for the rest of the space, the last thing to fix would be this fireplace over here. So this is one of the limitations, it's gonna be a way bigger project to try to make this look modern. So for now, I placed some plants over here to add some greenery to the space, and kinda distract myself from the fireplace, 'cause in r

eal life, we don't actually use the wood burning fireplace at all. So here's my future vision for the space. We're gonna completely change the exterior of the walls, to a more cement or plaster look, and then we're gonna extend this fireplace base, all the way across the room, and that's where the TV wall, we're gonna throw in some slats behind it. And finally, we're gonna add some shelving under the TV, and right by the fireplace. Hopefully we can reuse the media unit that we have right now, an

d place it on top of that base, but we'll see what happens then. So guys, let me know in the comments below what you think of the future design, or if you have any questions about my current living room setup, and if you're still watching up to this point, thank you so much for supporting my videos, and watching till the end, make sure you drop a fire emoji to let me know that you watched until now. And that's it for now guys. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the very next vid

eo. Bye! (mellow music)