Our Work Has Begun

Up until this time, most of the work on the addition has been contracted out, and it has been very nice to see things progress as we watch. Now all that has changed. We decided we would do a lot of the actual finishing things ourselves, mostly to save some money. Even though we have saved for this for years, the original estimate still exceeded our savings. Since we are more than capable of handling paintbrushes, hammers, etc., this is where we could save the most money. However things will also now slow down quite a bit too. We did need to decide on and paint at least a third of the family room because my fireplace was scheduled to be put in this past week. So the rush has been on to decide on colors and find the right lighting that will actually go in the fireplace. The drywall guys finished on Friday, and we had Saturday through Monday to get it done. Needless to say, I painted something every one of those days, either another coat on the ceiling or on the wall. Since I was the only picture taker, I didn't get in any of the pictures even though I actually did the most painting.

We actually agreed on a red color called Sun-dried tomato. Scott is putting on the first coat.

Hunter wanted to help paint so badly, so Scott came up with the idea of using a piece of leftover drywall and he used the same colors we did. I have never seen him work on a project with such focus for such a long period of time. I think he painted that piece for a couple of hours, first with white like the ceiling and then with red like the wall. It reassured Mom that he can focus on something for a long period of time.

Showing off his masterpiece...silly kid!

Here he is showing off Mom's masterpiece. For my birthday, Scott said I could have free reign with the fireplace, whatever I wanted for style and colors. It took Hunter and I a few days of driving around looking at fireplace models and rock samples at three different places to decide, but I absolutely LOVE the finished product (although it is not completely finished because we don't have the lights installed inside the alcove yet). Of course I can never just follow a normal pattern so by the end I had the guy removing one color of rock and adding in the special order red, but I really like the little pop of color that coordinates with the wall.

The alcove is recessed about five inches and we have lights that will mount on each side for soft light in the alcove. It will be beautiful, and I promise to post pictures of that when it gets all finished. Scott finished the mantel himself, and it is gorgeous too. He got compliments from the man that does the fireplaces.

The big picture...I think the red wall really sets off the fireplace. I couldn't be happier. Scott is pretty happy too, especially because it cost significantly less that what we had estimated. You all will have to come over for a visit around the cheery fire.