A new fireplace surround

Now that the living room walls are finished, we spent this week working on the fireplace. The original bricks had been painted a shade of red which we did not care for and the original mantel was mad of concrete and leaning forward about 15 degrees.
The first thing I did was to remove the concrete mantel and then knock away the bricks that were holding it up.
We used a coral  product to cover the brick around the fire opening and then framed and covered the remainder of the brick with wood. Also created a new wood mantel.

                                               BEFORE

This is how the fireplace looked before. The mantel has been removed.

DURING

Everything is covered and awaiting paint and wood moldings

AFTER

This is the final product with moldings and paint applied. Like putting lipstick on a pig. The magic cable box with the DVR is hidden under the mantel and behind the piece of wood running horizontal.  The piece of wood running horizontal below the mantel flips down while we watch TV so that the remote control can be used and flips back up when we are not using the TV to hide the box. The Television will go above the mantel. I will paint a large painting to cover and hide the television when not in use. 

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Living room wall treatment

We finished up the wood shiplap walls in the living room this week.
Lots of prep and painting and sanding , but well worth the labor (of love).
This will all get another coat of paint.



This is a panorama picture of the final product. More charm. Also more paint needed.

Panorama of living room

                                       
                                         A close up of the new wall texture.

New Kitchen Backsplash

 We just finished installing the glass tile backsplash. Different shades of green and blue and basically ocean colors.  It looks very much like sea glass that you would pick up on a walk on the beach. Looks really nice. We will change the color of the cabinets above it that we made to match the base cabinets and paint the inside of the cabinet above it  behind the glass doors turquoise to match the glass backsplash. This will allow the white dishes to really show up.

                                                                   BEFORE

 AFTER