Building in a new knee wall

This weekend, we got started on our first major (?) project in the blue house: rebuilding the knee wall that separates the entry way and living room at the top of the stairs. This poor-quality photo shows the wall I mean:

It’s wobbly and covered in blue trim with peeling paint. Initially, we were just going to fix it, paint it, and call it a day. BUT, then we thought we could do built-ins here and we decided we might as well just replace it instead. We've since changed our minds, kind of, and now we're just going to rebuild the wall entirely, trim it out to match what we'll eventually do throughout the house, and probably build-in a TV stand on the left. We considered replacing it with a railing to open things up, but I didn't want to see the TV through the railing the minute you walked through the door.

This photo sort of shows what was keeping this wall stable: a LOT of nails. I'm sure it was solid when it was first built, but over time, things loosened up - a lot - which was sort of problematic since the hand railing for the stairs attaches to this wall. 

I wish I had a beautiful after photo for you, but I don't. This is real life, which means that sometimes things don't happen quite the way we imagine. In this case, quite truthfully, the weather just sucked and we weren't motivated enough. The cold I seem to have come down with didn't help either.

BUT, it's still progress! Do you have any idea how exciting it was to take the first bit of drywall OUT of this house! Ah-mazing! Things are starting to happen. Very, very slowly.