thirty-seven seventeen: February 2012

I've shared way too many sneak peaks on Facebook for this post to be a surprise for anyone but the Den has seen a lot of changes in the last week.

Take a little looksy at what we've been up to...

Fireplace surround thingy (not quite sure what to call it) was caulked, primed, and painted.

The fireplace masonry couldn't stay the same with everything else around it getting a facelift, so it got a little makeover too.

Primed

Then painted with a heat resistent paint

Next, we painted the hearth a creamy almond color.

As soon as we turned our backs, Cody figured he would add his own little touch to the room by hopping up onto the freshly painted hearth, letting the paint squish between his toes, then jumping back down onto the newly refinished hardwood floors to leave a trail of tiny paws to the doorway.
Not quite the look we were going for, so we had some damage control to immediately attend to.

Behold his artwork.
(look to the right)

The proud culprit

While Cody was to our backs making art, we were installing the new light fixture and bamboo blinds.

Cooper modeling the new shades

Over the next few days the wallpaper went up.

This was super exciting because the room still looked a little sad until the wallpaper was hung, regardless of what was happening with the fireplace.

Next, we had our built-in desk installed.

A huge thank you to Derek Wilson, who owns and operates The Woodshop, for building and installing our beautiful desk.

After Derek installed our desk, he stuck around to help Travis build the mantel and left with instructions on how to properly dye and stain the mantel to match the desk top he built.

So we got to it.

Several coats of dye, stain, and polyurithane, and that puppy was ready to be hung...or placed...or whatever it is that mantels do.

And Cody helped.

Ta-da!

And, that's a wrap on the hard labor!!

All that's left is furniture and decor. Both of which we've been shopping for but it's turned out to be much more difficult than we expected. I'm obsessive and indecisive and Travis, God bless him, just doesn't care about fabric swatches and clean lines. We will have a new sofa and some chairs (and a few ulcers) in a few weeks though, mark my words.

Until then, we've staged the room with our handy-downs we brought from the Russell Street house and could not be happier to have another room to kick up our feet in!

Here's a review of our journey so far...