Another Fireplace Post?

Yes another one.  But it's worth sharing, I promise. 

Happy Friday by the way!  Don't you love summer?  Love it because you want to, and most of the time get to be outside and enjoy the lovely weather (when it's not scorching in the 100's).  Not to mention seeing all the new flowers come out and surprise new home owners.  I'll have to post about them later.

Anyhoo - back to the fireplace!  We were so happy that the new digs had one and we can't wait to put it to good use in the winter months.  My few, but loved, readers that continue coming back week to week have seen some pictures of it in previous posts.  Check 'em out here and here. 

Here's our before shot of the fireplace in the family room.

Yikes.  First we had to remove the old wire you can see to the left and right of the fireplace opening... 

...which left us with this hot mess (pun absolutely intended).  I guess it's normal for a 20 year old fireplace that has had some good lovin' over the years.  A little messy though, if you're trying to use it in the summer to house some perty candles and not just a nice coat of soot.

Grab a can of High-Heat spray paint!  Yeah yeah, spray paint again.  You know how much I loves it.  Haven't read about my obsession yet?  Check it out here and here.

 Matt went after it and in no time it was looking so fresh and so clean clean.  Is it still lame to quote Outkast? *Shrugs shoulders.  Whatevs.

This isn't the end of said fireplace.  Eventually, we'd like to reface the marble and also redo the accessories a bit.  Perhaps add a sunburst mirror that's all the rave these days...? 

Yes please....

It's a never ending process I tell ya'.

P.S. The front porch is getting revamped as we speak and hopefully I'll be posting about it next week sometime.

Mini Update Montage

I had a few things we've done that I kept putting off doing a post on.  I didn't know if they were "full post worthy".  So I've decided to do a little mini-update-montage here.

Part 1:  Fireplace

Here it is before we moved in, before the wall paint update.

Here it is post move-in and with a lil' bit of decor.

And here it is now that that gold trim is gone.  That was my first spray paint project EVER.  The same one that I messed up on since I took a piece of the spray paint can off that I wasn't suppose to.  Read about that more here.

Sorry the picture above is a little dark.  My camera sucks isn't the best so it's hard to get pictures at night in certain lighting.

Part 2:

Pillow casin'

Here is one of the pillows on our big ol' couch in the living room (we're planning on switching up for one not so huge-mongous that'll fit the room better).

We made a trip up to Ikea a few weeks ago and snatched two reversible pillow covers for $6 each.

And voila - instant upgrade. 

Part 3:

From "What the heck?!"

 To "Not bad..."

Matt gets all the credit for this one.  And we didn't have to spend a dime.  Just a lot of weeding and reused the stones that were already there.  Can you believe this is what was hiding under all the mess?  We still need to put down a weed mat, so that the "What the heck?" never happens again.

Okey dokes, that concludes this montage session. ;) 
Hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July weekend!