Fireplace Glory!

It is done, and it is glorious. Truly, it is a showpiece, and Teag is a master craftsman. The last you saw, the tile was going in around the actual fireplace unit, as well as the floor in front. After that he spent some time cutting and fitting the pieces together to create the actual mantle.

Is there a sexier sight than this?

 It was fun to watch the progress being made, as you could begin to visualize the finished product. Once it was all put together, the last element was the paint. We chose a pristine white to offset the darker tile, and it looks so fantastic!

I can't believe my husband has the skills to make something like that. He's one cool cat. We got to enjoy the loveliness of this being complete for maybe a day or two before it was on to a new aspect of the living room: can lights. Suffice it to say, they were very messy.

I was kind of thrilled when we were done with those. But the amount of light they add to our living room is significant, and I'm glad we chose to do them. Next Teag worked on tiling the entryway, something we've talked about doing for a very long time.

We used the same tile as that in front of the fireplace, and again, it looks amazing. Shortly thereafter, the carpet came up. We hauled it all to the dump as we prepare to paint and get new carpet. Which means our living room looks like this.

It's weird. This room has never been so empty. The kids are struggling with not having their usual spots for reading or homework, but hopefully we'll only be in this state for about two weeks. And in the meantime, Teag has a little helper to get the job done.

Something else to mention is that we're working on our upstairs hall in conjunction with this. I didn't get a picture of the full before, but you can get a pretty good idea of how heinous it was by these.

Teag's already ripped off the door-casings and baseboards, and stripped some of the peeling paint, but it pretty much has always looked like an eyesore. I'll be excited for fresh paint, nice new doors, and a light fixture that doesn't look like a bad 70's cast off. A lot of good things happening at our house!