Yesterday I shared the process of refinishing our uncovered fireplace. The previous homeowners built a wall over the existing fireplace only to be uncovered and refinished by us years later. Today I am excited to finally reveal our beautiful new fireplace!
If you need to catch up you can read about uncovering our fireplace and how we rebuilt it.
But first...let me take a selfie.
I kind of love that I unknowingly took all these photos in the reflection of our mirror. Maybe I am just vain. But I kind of fell in love with that gallery wall again after seeing all these pictures.
We have had a crazy busy January so it was just weeks ago that I finally got around to styling our mantel. For a few weeks it was filled with empty frames. I knew I wanted a large photo to ground the gold frame but it took me awhile to get around to it.
And because of where we live, certain areas in California have strict burning laws due to pollution. So because we are rule followers and people have called the county to complain twice about our house and once to the water district (the joys of living on the corner of a busy residential street...more about that later) we are going to follow the rules. Because some people have nothing better to do than illegally talk on their cell phone while driving to complain about perfectly nice homeowners who take great pride in making their house beautiful.
Anyways...because of these burning laws, I took a few pictures of our fire burning pre-styled mantel because as luck would have it, the day I took the finished photos, it was not a burn day.
Since Christmas I have burned a fire every burn day that we have had that I have been home for (which has not been a lot but still has been plenty). Needless to say I am obsessed with our fireplace and all things ambiance. What a joy a little fire can bring. Or perhaps I am a pyro.
And then I got around to finally filling in those frames. And through editing our 2500 photos from our trip to Paris. I played off the Eiffel Tower vibe and even included a je taime print.
With a few sprinkling of blues, I am very happy with my simple but pretty mantel display. I have a whole year of mantel decoration to come. 2015 will be the year of the mantel. It's going to be epic. Good thing I eventually sold all my old hutches. They would only be so jealous.
My mom takes my fiddle leaf figs during Christmas since our home gets taken over by a sea of trees. They always come back much fuller and happier. She is a plant whisperer.
I found this little geometric gold side table at Ross. I told myself if it was under a certain amount I would by it. It was one penny less. I am hesitant to try super modern trendy pieces in my home. This was a low risk way of adding modern without breaking the bank.
The little basket holds our fire making tools and such. I considered buying a fireplace tool set but now that we have made plenty of fires without one, I am pretty happy with just our basket.
Because of the burn days, these dark winter late afternoons can be kind of depressing when I cannot light a fire. I miss the glow of the fire or the Christmas tree so I placed a bunch of candles in front of the fire for some ambiance.
My name is Ashley and I am an ambiance-aholic.
Now that we have the fireplace I cannot pull myself away from it. We discussed needing a TV that we could watch in front of the fire to my parents. My parents recently bought a new TV so they passed their old one on to us. It is pretty large for a fireplace TV to just have around so we mounted it in my office (which is it's own wonderful thing now). I now make Brent unmount it so we can watch movies in front of the fire. It's delightful.
Our dining room is like a completely new space. Full of character and warmth. I am amazed that I could love my home even more. It is truly a place that I want to spend time in and make memories in. Though a tough job that took plenty of time and stress, I believe we are more grateful for it because we had to rebuild it with our own hands. What a great lesson it is to make our house a home.
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