More Remodelation

We're still remodeling our house, bit by bit. When we moved in a year and a half ago, we still had several 'mostly cosmetic' projects that we assumed we'd take care of once we got settled. Now I'm pretty sure that we'll be finished remodeling on the day we move out. Our big project for this year was refinishing the living room fireplace mantel and fitting it for gas logs. This is a very expensive project, mostly due to the antique tile that we decided to use. However, it looks fantastic. :)

This does *not* look fantastic. This beauty was what we originally had defacing the wall of our living room.

We installed the mantel on the wall when we moved in...and that's as far as we got. Here's a shot of the new fire box going in, brick by old brick (the bricks were salvaged from another chimney flue that we ripped out of the house. There were originally five fireplaces in this house; the fifth one had been sheetrocked into a wall and would've been in Frankie's room.)

Tubs of antique tile. We decided to go with a green, purple, and gold color scheme.

A general idea of the mosaic pattern before installation.

The surround installed and the tile affixed. It's starting to look pretty good!

The final step was sanding, applying putty, and staining/finishing the mantel. The final *final* step will happen in the fall when we insert some gas logs as we had a line run for them. Unfortunately they aren't a hot item in the spring and summer, so we'll pick up a set in the fall.

Lest you think we're more talented than we are, we hired out a restoration company to do this for us as if we'd left it up to us, this fireplace would probably not be nearly this pretty today.