Updated Fireplace!

Happy Friday Friends!  I have no idea where my time went this week?  I feel like I woke up Monday morning overwhelmed with the week to come, I blinked and it's now Friday!  I'm so excited to show you my finished fireplace today.  Before I show you let me just give you the background story.  So when we built this house my hubby gave me a very strict budget that I had to pick out everything with.  Needless to say by the time I got to my fireplace in the family room I had no more money.  I remember telling the tile shop just give me whatever I can get standard with the builder.  I have hated the way this fire place looked from the moment we moved in!  I begged my hubby to try a little do it yourself project that I had seen on HGTV a gazillion times.  (They make it look really easy!!!!)  Brad is much smarter than I and with passion he refused but he did give me the green light to have someone else do it.  Let me just say that after seeing what went into this tile instillation Mike my tile expert saved this house from some swear words and possibly a heated conversation or two!  So here it is finally...

Here is the before.  Brad had just tore off the huge dark brown tile.  Thats right it was basically brown on brown on brown.    Can you see the monster T.V. peaking out from the left side of the fire place?  ( Thats is going away too!)

This is our new friend Mike Sima!  If I could read his mind right now he is swearing up a storm.  He tore out that bottom row 4 times to get it perfect.  To my untrained eye I was thrilled with it but I let him get it just right.  I thought I had picked out the best tile for easy installation but it was not easy at all!  Mike had to cut all those tiny tiles and individually place them around the edges.  Sorry Mike!!!

I chose a hexagon marble tile.  I think it looks vintage with a updated twist.  When you walk by it almost sparkles.  Stephanie's 1st comment was "It is so shinny"  We also painted out the hearth and wall surround with the color Steamed Milk from Sherman Williams.

The bottom of the hearth is large marble tiles.  I love how clean this looks.  My mom thinks it looks "dressy" which is exactly what this room needed.  It is important to keep a balance if you have vintage finds in your decor like I do.  Before you know it your room will look like a flea market instead of a room with interest and character.

My monster T.V. has been replace with a smaller one and my handy hubby built those awesome floating shelves out of hollow core doors.  The only problem was the electricity and cable were down below where that basket is and I refused to have any cords so we had a electrician move the outlets for $60.  Totally worth that and so much more!!  Let this be a lesson...  Don't let a small bump in your plan (like the plug is in the wrong place) keep you from fulfilling your vision.

Thats it for this girl!  I'm counting down to an appropriate time for a glass of wine.
P.S. for local readers our Tile expert was wonderful to work with and his name again is Mike Sima 402-871-3678 if you need some tile assistance.