Working Man

It's time to brag and show off for my awesome husband!!

Remember this from when we first moved in?

It stayed pretty much like that for the first long while.  Then, when it started to get cold, we realized that the furnace does next-to-nothing for the basement and we might want the fireplace.  We quickly learned that to repair the fireplace would be insanely expensive.  Insanely.  So we looked at our options and decided to gut the whole thing, rebuild it out, tile the area near that wall, and put in a wood-burning stove that would more effectively heat the house.  So the gutting began.

Finally, the rebuilding began.  It was so satisfying to see that wall go up, so pretty!  And we realized that we also gained about 8 inches of space that we wouldn't have had if we'd just walled over the existing fireplace instead of tearing it out.

 

The tile took a little more work, and some frustration when Aaron couldn't get the tiles to cut like he wanted.  After a purchase of his very own tile cutter, it went much smoother.  He really loved having this as his own project to learn from.

 

And I love the finished product!  We're still narrowing down options for the wood burning stove itself, but are really excited about how it's come from it's starting point!

 Next project up for my hard-working man:  turning this bathroom into something like

this.

Definitely going to be a learning process here too!  Don't expect to hear much about it until March. :)