Waiting on my personal "Take Home Handy Man"

I'm off from work today and had big plans - BIG I tell ya! But, I got sidetracked early on with a photo organizing project and now I don't feel like I have a big enough chunk of uninterrupted hours to get much accomplished. That, combined with today's cold damp weather is really draining any enthusiasm I had when I woke up.

My "handyman" son is moving coming back from Jersey for an extended (hopefully permanent!) stay on Thursday so I don't think a wasted day will set me back much seeing as how we're going to have an extra pair of hands soon. Ironically, I've already "lent him out" to our neighbors for the weekend. He doesn't even know yet - HAR! But, I feel like it's the least I can do - volunteer someone else's labor and skills - to make up for pulling a big hunk of plaster off their wall a few days ago.

Nice people... They only asked for my opinion on whether to patch or tear out. Oops.

Maybe I'll just take a nap and leave well enough alone for the rest of the day.

We're Back!

With a cool new fireplace face-lift/makeover to "show and tell"!

While waiting for the arrival of our new Macbook I had some time to knock at least one goal off of the New Years Resolution list. Not only did I finally make a decision about what to do with the fireplace - (cover it up!) but, I think it's just an hour or two from being a finished project.

The 1950's stone facade was like a big black eye (to me) in this 1920's colonial-ish foursquare. With the somewhat unexpected expense of the new computer I realized I wasn't going to be chiseling this stone off in hopes of finding buried treasure any time soon. What if it's just an awful gaping hole underneath? I'd be stuck looking at it for a long, long time. I just couldn't do it. And I couldn't look at the gray stones much longer either. So, for about a $100 worth of lumber and tile this is the solution I came up with. If it's temporary fix, no big loss. If it turns out to be permanent I think I can live with it.

The tiles are two inch tumbled slate, I used black grout, a birch plywood for the face and trimmed it out to the bookcases I built earlier this year and now they actually do look "built in". Sorry for the crappy photo. I took it with my phone.

Now on to making a decision about the bottom of the hearth... more tiles or white wood? hmmmm...