luxe chandelier

Plan A: Build a fireplace. We didn’t build a fireplace which I originally wanted to. My dad and Tyler convinced me it was going to take forever and a lot of money especially when we didn’t have all the tools we really needed. So there went my plan.

Plan B: Craigslist. After only a few minutes of searching, I immediately found one I fell in love with. We went over to the owner’s house and purchased it from him. We felt bad for the guy that lived across the street – he was supposedly having a garage sale and had been sitting outside for a while hoping people would come by and no one did. I’m sure he didn’t enjoy seeing his neighbor sell a fireplace in less than 5 minutes.

The fireplace was dirty & almost a yellowish color. I swear I thought I took a “before” picture and unfortunately I didn’t… so there’s a picture of what it looks like after we sanded it.

We had paint from a previous project – Behr Premium with Paint & Primer in one. The longest part of the process was hot gluing the marbles on. Before we even did that we placed the marbles on first to see how many we needed for each side and to make sure they were even. Poor Tyler, I accidentally touched his finger with the hot glue gun. Then at the end, I did it to myself! Hot gluing can be messy & frustrating but that didn’t matter anymore after we were finished.

We only spent $100 on this project and that was spent on the fireplace and marbles from Michael’s. We’re in love with it! We’re thinking about getting wood and painting it the same color then put it on to add more thickness to the top. I’m already excited to hang my Christmas stockings up and now Santa Claus can come and leave us presents. It sucks we don’t have room for our Christmas tree in this area. Enough with the Christmas talk. We’re now satisfied with our faux fireplace and fire pit in our backyard that we finally used recently and I absolutely love the smell of burning wood!

I’m anxious & excited to get started on our next home project: a faux fireplace!

Usually other homeowners with this kind of space would build in a desk and use it as a place where to put bills and go on the computer. We have 4 bedrooms so we converted one into an office for both of us.

When we first moved in I was disappointed we didn’t have a fireplace. What were we going to tell our children about Santa Claus? He needs a way in to leave them presents. I know there are a lot of other ways for him to come in but I like the chimney method.

Tyler and I went to Home Depot the other day to get an idea of what we would need and the price of everything. We already painted the backsplash the same color as we did with our TV area in the family room. Since we already have a bold color, we decided the fireplace will be white. I love the idea of displaying candles. We have some marbles that I want to add on to give it an elegant look.

I hope we finish this project this weekend and not get distracted. Stay tuned!

Remember our striped wall last month? As much as we both liked it – I hated how it was making the room look so dark! Friday night we stayed up painting. My parents and Gil, a family friend, came over and we started drinking. I eventually got tipsy and we couldn’t finish painting or else the stripes would have not been straight at all!

We were at Michael’s the other day and came across these huge letters. We decided on Luxe and wanted to make it our statement so we spray painted them white and hung it up so it’s the first thing people see when they walk in.

A co-worker of mine didn’t want this bench anymore and gave it to us. We absolutely love it & wanted to use it for our “mudroom” by the entrance. We painted it a creamy white color.

We had these frames that we found while unpacking. I went to a scrapbooking store in town and came across some really cute paper for 85 cents per sheet. I love how they look! I love it & can’t wait to do more with the wall. Overall we spent around $50 in this room so far.