before & after

remember this post? well, as part of what i'm now going to dub "the great house renovation of 2010", steve and i gutted our fireplace and redesigned it. here's the before once again. i hated everything about it. the so-called mantle was extremely narrow, so you could barely rest anything on it. forget about decorating it for the holidays. there was no room. i hated the inset. i hated the moulding. i hated the boring, beige tile. did i mention i hated everything about it. oh yea, there were silver louvers surrounding the firebox (we took them off before i took this photo). i hated those too.

before

and tada, the after!

steve designed and built the mantle. i painted it in urbane bronze by sherwin williams. it's also the trim color on the outside of our house. i love it. this was our first attempt at laying tile and grouting. the tile is a mosaic made of glass and marble. we changed the silver louvers to black. and steve took out the inset in the wall above the mantle. it's so much more substantial now.
i think it's much more "pacific northwest". and it better suits our style and the style of the house.


and here's one more look of the before and after, side by side.
what do you think?