Our New Fireplace

I thought it would be cool to record the progression of the fireplace that we built in our home over the last month! (Wow! A builder who SAID it was going to take a month, and it DID!)

Looking back on the experience I learned this: NEVER EVER try to build a custom home. The number of "important decisions" that we had to make about this structure that would continually be a fixture in our home was RIDICULOUS. And the number of people invading our lives while this was being build was ridiculous, too: the contractor, the mason workers (two to mortar & one to cut), the carpenter to build the wood stuff, his helper, the guy to put in the gas piping, his helper, the electrician to reroute the lines & outlets, the guy who "moved" the vent, the drywall guy who repaired the hole from the guy who moved the vent, the guy who installed the gas firebox and logs, the guy who decided where to lay the gas tank, and the guys who installed the gas tank. For goodness sake! Luckily, though, we LOVE the result! : )

We even let the girls get the "touchdown," so-to-speak by putting the lava rock in the bottom of the fireplace! (The finishing touch!)

And another cool thing about having this done? The floor was covered with heavy paper, . . . so we used some of it (yes, to do her purple kitty room) as a coloring pad! Look at Leia Rose's most recent creation!!!

A pretty accurate rendition of me, I think! : ) I even have a "talk bubble" with me saying "Mom"! : )