Hearth of a Home

The summer brought us an unwelcome surprise - new duct work and a new A/C unit. We have been up to a lot of home projects since recovering, here is our latest!

We have a funny tile story in our house, in that the tile in both of our bathrooms is also the tile on our fireplace. My best guess is that the guy who flipped our house (more on that later), bought one box of tile for the house.
Black marble tile is fine for some people, but for us, it is just that... fine:

Pierre had been talking for a while about demo-ing the tile and re-doing the mantel. I was in the midst of planning an in-house baby shower for my sister so told him we could think about it after the baby shower.

Well, I guess my words were taken literally because the day after the shower, I woke up from a nap to this:

 

Here is the damage to the living room....

Once we start something, we don't stop until we are finished. So, we finished the demo of the tile and mantel and then went shopping for tile with a visa gift card we had been saving for a house project. We looked at Home Depot, Lowes and The Tile Shop. We looked specifically for 2"x8" tile because once we discussed the design, we knew we wanted to do subway tile on the fireplace and a herringbone pattern on the hearth. We found a marble tile we loved and bought one box in a matte finish. Pierre designed the trim pieces and mantel. We hired a friend to do the mantel and tile.

Step 1 - Smooth out the surface

Step 2 - Install new trim

Look at the new (standard) mantel height

Time for the new tile!

        

The living room was a big job, we removed chair rail, installed four new lights and painted... more to come!