Fireplace Before and AFTER! What'cha think?

First let me apologize for how long this post is............hope you like novels. :)

Our house had so many flaws when we bought it, but one of the ones that bugged me most was the "blue" 12 x 12 tiles that flanked all sides of our fireplace. It wasn't an attractive tile.......well not for a fireplace surround anyway. After much searching and yearning for a mantel, I found a GREAT deal on one at JC Penneys! (of all places!) I saw it in one of their sale books and it was marked down from $1,000.00 (yes a thousand!) to $400.00, so I thought I would get online and look at it more closely. Well when I got online to check it out, it was only $350.00 on there! woo hoo! I was lucky enough to have a 20% off coupon which brought it down to $280.00 AND it was free shipping if I had it delivered to the nearby store. :-) I was a VERY happy girl! I anxiously awaited the arrival of my new "baby", and finally got to bring her home. :) lol As my husband and I began to assemble the few pieces I found a hairline crack on one of the columns (you can't really see it because of the distressed finish, but who wants to buy something only to find a boo boo on it) Anyway, it didn't really bother me much, but I called the store to tell them about it.........Guess what??!! They took another 15% off! My once thousand dollar fireplace was now $238 bucks! hee hee hee (can you tell I'm giddy about the price!!) lol So now that we had this amazing fireplace, we had to do something about that "blue" tile! YIKES! One day, while my honey was at work, I thought I'd just start "popping" some of those tiles off the wall...........they should pop right off, right? WRONG! The first 2 popped with no problem, but the farther into it I got, the more the sheetrock came off than the tile! UGH! Soooo, to make an already long post shorter, we "popped" (lol) off the rest of the tile and had to re-sheetrock the whole surrounding area. I picked a nice neutral tile color to replace the dreaded "blue" tile and also got what was called a pencil tile (just a long narrow strip) made of stone for an accent on the bottom, also in that neutral color. I began the labor intensive task of laying out how I wanted the tiles, cut all the ones that needing cutting with the wetsaw (yes ladies, you can use a wetsaw....not hard, just messy) and then I began laying the tiles, one by one. Laying tiles horizontally is not a hard task, but vertically is a little more challenging...........can you say tape?...........I used lots of it to hold them in place while the adhesive dried. :) After all that mess and grouting, we were finally ready to assemble our whole project and be done! My honey helped me attach the fireplace mantel to the wall, it was definitely a two person job! I didn't think to take the typical before and after pictures, but I do have Christmas pictures that are before and after.........isn't it a huge difference!!? What'cha think? It's so nice to finally have a real fireplace to hang our stockings on. (well, I didn't actually hang them on the mantel........didn't want to make holes in it!) lol So, you think the story ends here, right? Well we finally get our friendly neighborhood Southern States guy out to hook up our gas logs so we can have our very first fire and guess what? Someone (the crazy person that built this house) had put in natural gas longs instead of propane! There's not a natural gas line within 5 miles of my house! (well maybe, but not in my backyard!) So began another search, this time for logs that would fit my fireplace.....let's just say Ebay is my friend. :) I also sold the natural gas ones for $150.00 (they had never been lit...........wonder why?! lol) on craigslist which almost paid for my new ones. God is good and gives us what we need. :) Okay, so we now have the Southern States guy come back out to install it all and he says we get the install for free cause we used them for the propane! (see God is REALLY good!) :) We now have a fire after close to 3 years in our house, how wonderful is that!! It's now so warm and cozy sitting around that fireplace............not to mention rewarding because ........1.I got a great deal on the mantel 2.we did it ourselves and 3. God had a hand in it all. :) I love it when I can see God's fingerprints on my life. Have a great day, I think I'll go sit by the fire. :)

Before...............

After...........................

Sorry the pics are so dark, and you can't see the fireplace as well as I'd hoped, but can you see the nice neutral tiles in there.........sigh...so much better than blue! :)