sweet progress

kaBAM! yesss! this is where we are now! looking at this pic i reflect. though it is so much harder to see when your living in it, sometimes you need a little look BACK- to know how far you've come. while we are far from done.. we've come a long way. today's post i dedicate to one small but significant piece of the transformation in travel through time.

the chimney

the chimney has been through many life phases. it began covered in plaster and completely hidden by a hideous fake monstrosity of a fireplace we tore down minute one after entering the house. 

this photo shows the beast face down, it also shows the real fireplace after we chipped away the plaster that covered it.

next began the brick work. we believe that at some point narrow chimneys became unfashionable. to compensate- homeowners would build up their chimney's on either side with brick to create a wide look. i'm thinking this is similar to pant styles, wide leg v. skinny jean with a whole lot of wasted brick. what resulted however, was an obvious straight grout line that clearly shows the older brick from newer.  not easy to see in this photo- but it was very visible in person.

of course there was also the problem that the fireplace, once exposed, was filled in with concrete! and topped off by some old wallpaper. there were a lot of questions about what would happen if, when, we decided to dig into the mass. would we hit a gas line? would our chimney fall with out the support? would we find the box of money we swear herbert sass buried somewhere in the house?

read on!

first came the reshaping... getting her back to original size.

of course that left exposed brick behind it so drywall had to be matched next the plaster ...















then came the reshaping plus- apparently my husband hates non-symmetrical house structures and had to do something about the slightly right of center chimney

This brick work was a small part of some massive brickwork that i have few photos of. basically all our brick had to be refinished, and like this shows, adam mixed up some matching mortar to fill in the mortar gaps. he also replaced a dozen or so broken bricks and the walls look fantastic. next up is sealing 'em pretty.   

and then came the concrete mass. thankfully or not none of our predictions came true, and we were excited to find a hollowed out fireplace, complete with black soot from its yester-working years, and our ventilation pipe running right up the middle.

gorgeous!

AND THE BEST PART....

the messy work is finally done, and we got FURNITURE

so... while the living room is still far from completely finished,

it is closer than we've been and is now a room we can actually USE!  i have my couch!

now is the finishing details:
sealing the brick, tiling the fireplace, tiling and finishing the entry way, trim, baseboard, crown molding, and finishing the floors. 

summertime will make it that much more difficult to move on... with the weather beckoning us outdoors and an onslaught of weddings and related activities, it may be slower going. but at least she's in use.