After living with an ugly fireplace for a year, we finally started work on it.
Here's what the fireplace looked like when we first bought the house - horrendous!

For the last year we've been enjoying our wonderful wood burning stove insert, but we've had to look at the ugly mantel and surrounding brick.  The brick actually doesn't look horrible in this picture, but it is - it's had been painted a sad fake brick color.  The whole thing is gross.

Work started by building a frame for the new mantel and tile backer.  We wanted to imprison the brick for being so ugly.

Next came the tile backer.

 

Tiling in progress...

And the finished product

Living room rehabs are finished!  Next project = kitchen counter tops

Time for a living room overhaul!

Here's what our wall has looked like for one full year.

We finally came up with a plan for the beams and the book shelves.  This is the beginning stage of what ended up being a long process with many steps.

Beams are in place waiting for stain.

 

The recess in the wall which would later have the bookshelves provided a backdrop for figurative art poses.

 We designed and built the shelves in the basement then put them into place.  This is what they looked like before stain and varnish.

We had to put up trim pieces to finish out the beams.  The trim pieces got stained first.

After lots of staining and varnishing we were finally able to decorate the shelves and put the room back together.

Finishing touches for the ceiling was installing a new ceiling fan.  Living room is complete except for the fire place, that's our next project.  We're so excited for it all to be finished.