A New Old House: fireplace

Showing posts with label fireplace. Show all posts

Friday, December 30, 2011

Happy New Year!

I've begun taking down some of the Christmas decorations. Not all of them, but I needed to make room for my New Year's decorations. While only used for about a week each year, these are among my most favorite items!

Many of the hats have
astrology signs on them

They are from the 1940s-1950s and belonged to my grandparents. Each year they'd go to a restaurant called Hunter's Inn for New Years Eve. These are the party hats & noisemakers they collected from the events.

My favorite hat!

I've decided to put them up on the mantle in the family room this year.

Pure coincidence is this glass stirrer that my mom found at a community yard sale this past summer.

Inside is a rolled paper saying "Hunter's Inn- A Smart Place to Dine and Dance".

It's pretty amazing that this little glass stirrer has made it all this time without breaking!

My mom told the woman selling it about my grandparents going there every New Year's Eve, and it turns out the woman's parents did the same!
Makes me wonder if they knew each other... it certainly is a small world sometimes.

Wishing you much joy & love in 2012!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Snowy Halloween!

I was planning to go out in the yard and take some autumn-y photos to post, but then this happened:

We were lucky, only losing power for the afternoon/evening... many of our neighbors are still without it.

Looking on the bright side, not having heat gave us the opportunity to try out our fireplace! We weren't sure how well it would work, since the chimney cleaners told us the opening was really small.

Hooray- great draft, so we're good to go!

Once the snow stopped, it was actually quite beautiful outside! The sky was SO blue!

We went out to survey the damage...

Lots of tree limbs were down- and one fell on our picket fence. (Good thing we have those extra sections that we took down & saved when we put the new fence in!)

A big branch also fell on the car- THANKFULLY no damage!

So, we ended up having a cozy weekend at home, and the kids had a great time playing in this freakishly early snow (let's hope they still have this enthusiasm come February! I highly doubt I will!)

Hot Cocoa by the fire, to warm them up after playing outside!

Here are a couple Halloween photos I did manage to take before the snow:

Antique corn roaster-
didn't actually try it, but thought it looked quite pretty!

Pumpkin picking two weekends ago

An autumn sunrise

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Project #1- The Family Room

We needed for just one room to be finished, so we'd have a place to relax- and not feel anxious being surrounded by more projects.

This room was a no-brainer, since all it really needed was painting.

Here's the BEFORE shot:

We were very fortunate to have Mom & Dad staying with us through the move. They got all three coats of wall paint, plus all the moulding painting done while we were at work that week!

Here's the AFTER:

Eventually, some of the more formal furniture (piano, secretary) may move into a formal living room- but that space is currently the dining room...

So, for now, I'm very happy with this room. It feels warm & comfortable. Just a few odds & ends to finish up: paint the radiators, finish hanging pictures, get new fireplace tools.

I'm already getting excited about decorating for Christmas in here!

In Progress:

Grounding the "floating beam"

There was this odd (sheet-rocked) box going around the top of the fireplace. Since it was painted the same color as the walls, it looked like the center beam was just floating.

I figured the best way to ground it was to paint it brown, so that it looks like the beams that go around the perimeter of the room.

Decorative Details: