Fireplace III

Our Fireplace overhaul involved the following steps:

1. Buy glass doors months in advance.
2. Decide that we need to put the doors on.
3. Realize if we are going to put glass doors we might be destroying the current tile.
4. Decide to get prettier tile.
5. Research tile.
6. Budget for tile.
7. Go to tile place and price tile.
8. Re-budget for tile.
9. Order and pick up tile.
10. Realize that we are not gifted at putting in glass tile for our first tile project.
11. Get Steve to come help us put tile in.
12. Re-budget for fireplace overhaul.
13. Have him grout with the glue so we don't have to pick out all of the glue to grout.
14. Sand down mantle.
15. Prime mantle and paint with previous owners "same" trim paint.
16. Realize that the paint is not cream and way too bright.
17. Re-budget to include paint.
18. Go and pick out more paint and while we are at it decide to pick out a wall color as well.
19. Paint the mantle.
20. Re-budget for wall color paint.
21. Decide while the husband is at work to buy paint color and a special brush to cut in and paint while children are sleeping.
22. Do a second coat the next day.
23. Darken the grout on the glass tile.
24. Throw out the budget and realize you are never going to get to go out to eat again until the fireplace is finished.
25. Seal all of the tile.
26. Sit back and enjoy the brand new look of our living room.

Here are some pictures of the final look. I love it. A cold front is coming through today and tomorrow and we are planning on having a fire for the first time. I can't wait!

The Fireplace Part II

Here is a picture of the fireplace with primer and one coat of paint. I think it is so much better. In fact, I now like to sit in the living room gazing and thinking what a perfect painting job the husband has done so far.

In fact as I was sitting in our comfy leather chair, with a cat on my lap and coffee in my hand last night, I encouraged the husband while he was painting. I know what you're thinking, "Why is she lounging around drinking de-cafe while her slave of a husband paints?"

1. I'm a "slap it on up there quickly" kind of gal. This drives the husband crazy. Since I'm not good at detail painting he has a hard time with trusting me to do this on my own. Though he is working on the trust issues, he actually prefers that I sit there as long as I compliment him. Instead of watching Psych re-runs, I sat in the chair and thought of complimentary alliterations. "Perfect Paint job hon," or "Exquisite Execution." This is what I call a win-win situation don't you? (If you think of a good alliteration this week and see the husband, please feel free to compliment. He'll enjoy it.)
   
2. The baby cried most of the last 48 hours. He had gasro-intestional distress from a dairy incident that I won't go into. It involves the husband and a very cranky mommy so I'll let you guess the details. After all the crying the husband was more than willing, out of a somewhat guilty obligation, to let me sit and joke about alliterations. I was quite comfy. It eased his guilt. Again. Win-win, no?

Onto deeper painting questions. We just did one coat and are planning on painting the wall behind the fireplace another color. What colors does everyone suggest for the wall? Should we go a little more cream on the next mantle coat? I need others to help me with my indecision.

The Fireplace Remodel

We have been planning on doing an overhaul on our fireplace since we moved in. The previous owners built the house, but never used the fireplace. There were no doors and the tile matched the bathroom tile. While, not terrible, we decided that the fireplace should be a bit more functional with better aesthetics.

We've had the doors for awhile and, this weekend, was finally the weekend we put in new tile.

Here is the fireplace after busting out a couple of tile. Not terrible right?

Then we realized we needed to put the doors on to see if they fit so we could take them off again to tile. Aren't they new and sparkly?

Here is the fireplace with all the tiles busted out.
This is Steve. The man that came in to put in the glass tile. We were in over our heads. He's great at home projects and let me put pictures of him on my blog. (We thought about granite, but whoa howdy, too much for our budget.)

This is the fireplace with the glass tile up, new tile floor, but no grout. The husband is priming the mantle as we speak and I'll post the final pictures when we are done this week.