The epitome of 80’s awesomeness

 

First, let me apologize for the angle of this photo.  It was taken shortly after moving into our house and prior to my awareness of the importance of “before” photos.  I think despite my shoddy photography, you can still see the majestic wonder of our old fireplace/mantle.  The rough cedar was especially fun to attempt to clean.

My husband spearheaded the revamp of this area in design, demo and construction as I was pregnant or tending to an infant and relatively useless when it came to anything non baby-related.  He built the mantle with the help of his father (and his tools) at his parent’s house.  This is where the whole measure twice, cut once saying comes into play, in that building off-site (cutting, constructing, detailing) without double checking the fit of the piece resulted in an extra high mantle.  I love it but it is a tad high.  My handy hubby also did all of the tiling, using a glazed porcelain mosaic on the wall and a larger tile of the same kind on the floor. 

Here is a “during” shot featuring my macho hubby (check out those slippers), our sad little fake Christmas tree and the project super, our first born at 3 months old.  So much greatness in this pic!

We enlisted the help of my sister to help paint in the eleventh hour before our son’s baptism.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute.  What a great Godmother!

And here she (the fireplace, not my sister) stands today: fresh, shiny and new.  I love how it modernizes and lightens up the space.  Such a difference!

                               Before                                    After

 

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