GRATEFUL 365

Tonight I am taking a break from my classes. I think my brain has sprung a leak and I need to let all that knowledge just spill into my body tonight. I'll hit the books again tomorrow....but for now I'm looking through pictures.

I haven't posted updates on the house for quite some time. We finally have all the big projects finished and I am very grateful for that! We still have some painting to do in the hallway and lots of touch ups and a long list of little things but again, the big projects are complete. (at least until we begin on the sun room. I'm not even thinking that far yet.)

The bookcases by the fireplace are in and I am in love! I now have a place for my sweet little books and I even have room for more! That is pretty exciting news in my world. :) 

The "Before"

 This is what the fireplace looked like when we bought the house. 
Not a bad looking fireplace at all.

It just seemed a bit outdated so we thought we'd give it a coat of paint to freshen it up a bit and see if that helped. 

The white rock did nothing for me but I was convinced that it would grow on me. 
But.... it did not grow on me and I just knew if we didn't change it we would always kick ourselves for not doing it. So, we took that leap of faith and tore off all that rock until we were down to the bare minimum of the fireplace. What a mess that was. A jack hammer and rock makes dust. More dust. ugh!

The only bad thing was we'd already installed the wood floors so now we had to cover all the new floors. That really did concern me because I just knew we'd scratch up those new floors. The guys assured me they'd be fine but I was skeptical. 
We chose a stacked stone to finish the fireplace front and had intended on adding a mantel but once it was finished we decided not to. For now, we like the clean front. And we added a wood burning insert because we just love that warm heat on those cold Nebraska nights.

I haven't taken any pictures since I've added plants and a few accents to the shelves but this gives you an idea how much it's changed from the "before" picture.

 

It was quite a project but we love it.