babybloomr

OK, “popular” might be a little strong. Actually “demand” might be a little strong. The truth is I’ve gotten a few random casual inquiries about that fireplace I was whining about painting a couple of months ago,  like, did I actually ever finish it? In my book, that translates into Popular Demand, so here you are.

Also in the interest of full disclosure, lately I have been poring over a lot of home decorating blogs and I really love those ‘before and after’ photos! I’m the kind of person who needs to actually see an example of something in order to successfully mentally translate it into what it might look like in my house. (Looking at a 5 square inch wallpaper sample does me no good, but seeing a photograph of a whole room covered in it gets my creative juices flowing… OK, wallpaper is a bad example– after stripping 4 rooms full of wallpaper when we moved into this house because I’m too cheap to pay someone else to do it, I doubt if I will ever use it in my life!) Decorating blogs are so inspiring to me. I’ve made my peace with the fact that any house I ever live in will never be totally “done” as far as decorating goes; it will always be a work in progress, because I keep changing my mind every time I see some wonderful picture of a particularly stylish/unusual room. Also, the voyeur in me just loves a peek into other people’s houses! So, in case there are any fellow nosy people reading the ‘bloomr this morning, this one’s for you.

Now, let me go on record as saying I have nothing against brick fireplaces, or brick in general. Gloria Gaither has a beautifully weathered old brick floor in her kitchen that I just love, and my mom’s house has a great brick fireplace in the living room that matches the brick counter island in her kitchen. But the den in our house– which is between the entry hall and the kitchen with french doors that lead out onto the deck– isn’t a huge room and the wall o’ brick seemed a little overwhelming. It has cherry-stained wood wainscoting and crown molding that would probably make the whole room kind of dark  if there weren’t the french doors and another window in there to let light in. And I am all about the light, folks– I always gravitate towards natural light, and in my opinion there’s no such thing as too much of it so I want to maximize what I’ve got. The brick fireplace goes all the way up to the crown molding, and trust me, it’s a LOT OF BRICK. I toyed with several ideas (Box it in with wood and then paint it? Tile over the brick with marble or travertine?) before coming up with the idea of just painting it to match the walls, which are a warm, light gold color called Warm Muffin. I wanted to keep the mantle, which is a big chunky one stained to match the wood in the room.

**Here are a couple of ‘before’ shots. This one is from Christmas a few years ago–there IS a mantle in there somewhere, it’s just kinda buried in nutcrackers.

** Prepping everything before I started painting took a while. That big honking mantle just lifted right off, but Madi and I almost dropped it because we sort underestimated the WEIGHT of it.

**I meticulously taped everything off with painter’s tape, which takes forever but I really didn’t want to get any paint on the wainscoting or the rug.

** (I like that bright blue painter’s tape better than that boring ol’ tan masking tape, don’t you?)

**Next I removed the grate, cleaned and swept out the interior of the fireplace which was really messy. After sticking my head waaay up inside of it with a flashlight, I finally figured out how to get the glass door unit out, too. I’ve never liked those doors, they were shiny ‘builder’s brass’ and those little wire mesh curtains that keep the sparks from popping out were permanently off the track and coming apart. Once I finally got the sucker out, I could see that the strips of insulation inside were shredded and just filled with ash and dust. All in all, the whole thing was in bad enough shape to justify replacing it with something newer and less… shiny.

**I prepped the brick by using a wire brush to get rid of any loose mortar which was actually messier than cleaning out the dang fireplace! It left a fine layer of mortar dust EVERYWHERE, but luckily I had already covered most everything in big plastic sheets. The brick soaked up the paint like crazy– I used a roller with a really thick nap and it took at least two coats. I let the first one dry overnight and finished up the next morning. Madi helped me put the gargantuan mantle back up, I replaced my art deco watercolor (another 1920’s pensive woman, go figure) and my two Old Time Pottery vases, and voila! Finished!

**Here’s a last shot (in natural morning light– I just love how this paint color changes subtly during the course of the day) with the new plain black glass fireplace doors. In person the doors are not as stark and black-hole-ish as they look in this picture, it’s just kind of a more understated, unadorned look and doesn’t draw attention away from the other things in the room, which is what I was going for.

So, whaddya think? Opinions are welcome– I understand that to a lot of people painting over brick is a criminal act, so you won’t hurt my feelings if you prefer the ‘before’. Also, let me know if this kind of post is remotely interesting to you or not… I’ve got a lot more ideas percolating around in my head (fed by my new diet of home decorating blogs), so nothing in this house is safe right now… There might be a lot of ‘before and afters’ to come, if you’re interested!

Look at me, posting again so soon like a big girl!

Oh, before I forget, here’s a public service announcement regarding the difficulties some of you are facing when you attempt to register to leave comments: I HAVE NO IDEA WHY IT IS REFUSING YOU, but I have emailed The Computer Genius about it, so hopefully I will have some instructions to share with you soon. Or, perhaps we will all join together and have a ‘bloomr community WordPress exorcism; time will tell.

Thought I’d throw a few more Christmas photos at you…

*** First of all, you should know that my family’s holiday table was greatly enriched by several of my beloved readers–  Momma Lloyd sent us to Arkansas with another gorgeous red velvet cake, Jolene and her mom made the most unbelievable cookies (Jolene, seriously, my sister Carolyn really wants the potato chip cookie recipe– help a sista out!), and we even still had enough of DELIVERED’s fabulous jalapeno jelly left over from Thanksgiving to put over some cream cheese and serve with crackers (What? Jelly keeps forever, it was delicious!) Here is a shot of some dessert platters we were assembling that included Jolene’s cookies (the powdered sugary white ones AND the toffee) and a bunch of stuff my mom and sisters made as well. We had so many sweets we ran out of counter space and had to use the laundry room as a staging area:

**Here is a sweet picture of my Dad with my nephew Andrew. I love Daddy’s expression here so much! He is wearing one of the three new hats I brought home for him– yeah, you know me, if some is good more is better! Russ is worse than I am, though. Once he found out that Dad was feeling cold a lot of the time he just KEPT going shopping and bringing home all kinds of warm clothing –jackets, sweat pants, wool socks, fleecy slippers.. It was hilarious! Between his extensive hat collection and Russ’ wardrobe stylings, if Daddy decides he wants to spend a weekend at the Arctic Circle, he’s good to go.

**Our annual Christmas Eve celebration at Momma June and Daddy Bud’s house was better than ever. Here’s the food:

**This is the best dishtowel I have ever seen:

**Here I am loving up on my grandniece, Brailyn– i could eat this kid with a spoon!

** Russ brought his guitar and we sang some carols before we opened presents. There are some really good singers in this group, especially Russ’ brother of choice Stuart. He’s sitting next to his beautiful wife Berna (in the purple top) and somehow I managed to completely cut him out of this picture.

**Char is studying her Dad. (Her fashion statement is a Christmas ribbon and an old necktie from an entire collection of them that Russ “won” in a round of Dirty Santa.)

**Here’s Madi rocking her baby… (OK, I know that putting clothes on a dog is ridiculous, but Thea did get a very short haircut and she was shivering when she went outside and that is a hilariously cute $5 Chanel knock-off dog sweater– oh who am I kidding, IT’S RIDICULOUS!)

**This is how Mom wakes us up every Christmas morning of our lives– she plays “Silent Night” (verrry badly, because she only plays it once a year) on the organ REALLY LOUD! Char served as her personal assistant and page-turner this year:

**Maddie got just what she asked for– a gigantic blue Snuggie that totally swallows her!

**And lastly, here is an action shot of one of our famous Nertz games. Please note the fact that my lightning fast technique has not only blurred the camera but has apparently left everyone else at the table completely stunned into submission. I feel sure I totally won that hand.