Deconstruction of the Circle of Doom

The Circle of Doom was created when L was almost five months old and started army crawling.  He's a very determined child and our house has an open floor plan.  So we got a gate to keep him from going down the hall to the bedrooms and bathrooms, used the pack n' play to keep him out of the kitchen, and arranged the living room furniture to keep him out of dining room and away from the front door.  This allowed L to have the entire living room for play and allowed the animals to come and go as they pleased.  It was dubbed the Circle of Doom because once an animal entered L was all over them.  Some were ok with that.....

 but when they were done, they could easily go elsewhere.

The Circle has changed over time.  When L got a little older he wanted to be in the kitchen while we cooked or cleaned, so the pack n' play was removed and a longer gate added to keep him out of dining room.  We also rearranged cupboards so he could have his own to play in while in the kitchen.

It was a sad day when the Circle was broken.  It didn't take him long to figure out how to climb over the ottoman.  But we didn't give up and for the most part, he respected it when it was in place.  We've slowly been giving him more room to roam.  We stopped putting the ottoman in place a month or so ago and haven't had any issues.  The day before his birthday party I took down the gate between the kitchen and dining room, mostly for ease of cleaning.  It never went back up and I don't miss climbing over it or walking around it.

So yesterday morning L decided it would be fun to run in circles through the kitchen, dining room and living room.  Watching how close he was coming to the edge of coffee table made me cringe, so I made the decision to rearrange.

Before, with ottoman in place...

After....

The other chair was moved to the other side of the living room with L's toys.  So of course, he now thinks it's his....

When J saw what I had done, he made another decision.  Remove the coffee table all together.  So our open living space is actually open again and it seems very odd to me.