fireplace makeover

Over the summer, my husband and I bought our first house together. Finding a house that we both loved was an interesting journey. Luckily for him (and me) I was blessed with the ability to see the potential in a place. Needless to say, our new to us home, had a long way to go before it would feel like home to me. The kids were down at their mom's house for the summer so we wanted to be sure each of them came home to a room that was all their own, which meant other projects went on the back burner for a while. Our first priority (even before the bedrooms) was the flooring.

We got the flooring done. We got the kids bedrooms done. Next, and first on our "winter project list' was the eye sore in the living room. Our fireplace. Our home was built in 1975 and I'm pretty sure that everything in our home is original. 

I am no chicken when it comes to home projects. I get a major (natural) high off of a simple transformation! I get an even bigger thrill out of them when I can do it on a dime. 

Original fireplace... the before

This is a picture of our fireplace as it looked when we moved into our house. Im sure that when our house was built this was be-you-ti-ful! However, I could not fall in love with it! So... 

I'm pretty sure this made it worse

We tried painting it the same color as the walls in hopes that it would simply disappear. HA! No such luck. So every time I left for work I tried persuading my husband to surprise me with a fireplace makeover. My luck with that was about as successful as making it disappear. We were sitting around one weekend and I decided I had seen enough of this fireplace. I was gifted a little money from my mom and it happened to be just enough to purchase the supplies for this project. Before my husband could stop me I was pulling those would slats off one by one. Before I could stop him... he jumped in there and took over, so I took on the role as his assistant.  

The almost finished product

By the end of the weekend we had a new fireplace and what felt to me like an entirely new living room. Oh, and you should know that I did my share of hanging sheetrock, taping and mudding. My beef with the new fireplace is those stinkin' intake vents. I would love to get some ideas on how to cover them/disguise them. If you have any ideas let me know. Stay tuned for more home makeover pictures.

Why clouds and chaos?

What better way to describe my life than clouds and chaos?

When I think of clouds I think of the fluffy ones. You know, the kind where its as if someone left  a trail of cotton candy through the sky. Peaceful, happy, calm, clouds that are best seen (in my opinion) from somewhere around 35,000 ft. I literally live in the clouds most days of the week.

Then there's the chaos... the kind you experience when you walk through the door to your husband and three kids. Or in my case, the insta-family that I recently (officially) became a part of, my 3 step-kids and my wonderful husband. I do have to brag a little here because I don't want "chaos" to sound ALL bad. It's just a lot more busy than the quiet hotel rooms that I call home 2-3 nights out of the week. In ways of step children, I have been extremely blessed with the BEST step-kids out there.

Sometimes the chaos takes place in the clouds and sometimes the most peaceful place to be is among all the chaos.