20 hours later...

Whew! That was a lot of work. I finshed this over a week ago and am just updating my blog now. Life has gotten so busy. This is the almost finushed product. I am going to be just doing some grout on the inside of the fireplace. Glass scratches, so I don't think I'll be putting any inside. I guess I'm happy with it overall. We ended up using the squares and went for a smoke blue-green color. Someone asked me if I used back splash tiles the other day. I tried to give it a more zippered look rather than just throwing up square sheets of tile but I don't know how well it work. I feel like it's really lacking the drama I wanted it to have. Oh well, it's still an improvement. Here are some more photos up close.






Now- for more exciting news. The floors on the main level are being refinished and polyed as I type. My promise to myself was to get these floors done this winter after I completed refinishing all of the woodwork on the first floor- which I did! Even more exciting, I purchased a gorgeous modular sectional to replace my hideous red couches. It's getting delivered this Friday and I'm so psyched. Here is a photo of the couch on the floor. It'll be in more of an L-shaped design at our place:



Last but not least, Quentin installed all of the lighting in the kitchen, and I painted it. What a difference the lighting makes. It really makes the kitchen flow more with the rest of the house. The lighting is soft and halogen vs. ugly flourescent lighting with a HUGE framed oak home made fixture. Here is a photo of the old light:



I'll post photos of the new lights once we are back in the house! Here are some photos of the fireplace before we touched it.


What a difference- right?

Did I say tiling was fun???

Well, I lied. Over the weekend, I began putting smoke gray blue glass tile going vertically on the face of the fireplace.... Ugh. I worked at it for 7 hours pretty much non stop on Friday and about 3 hours yesterday and I'm still not finished. This space is only 12 feet! The tiles come in a square foot sheet. I didn't want to just put the tile up there without cutting the sheet, because I thought it would look boring. I cut the sheets into strips and did a vertical pattern that alternates. It almost gives it a zippered look. Well, non of my spacers fit between the sheets (I got 2 different kinds) so I've pretty much had to eyeball everything, which has made this job more difficult than it needed to be.

Anyway, I am hoping to be finished with this project once and for all next weekend. I'll post some pics then.