First Fire of the Season!

That's right! This is our first fire of the season! Actually, it's the first fire we've ever had since we bought this house—EIGHT YEARS AGO!

That's my kitty, Smokey, checking out the fire. He's not sure what to think of this as he's never seen a fire!

You may have noticed that my mantle decor looks a little different. My little one and I dragged out some Halloween decorations yesterday to help celebrate the season! 

She especially loves this tin haunted house I found a few years ago! She thinks we ought to find a few more and have a "haunted neighborhood" on our mantle!

How cute is this ceramic skeleton? He's assembled with wire and can be gently posed. Love him!

I got this witch smoker doll when I lived in Germany. She's even got a wart on her face by her nose!

Hope you're having fun celebrating the season as much as we are!

Framed

I've been busy altering the appearance of my new frame. Initially I contemplated painting and glazing the frame, but in the end I decided to coat it in a dark walnut stain instead. With the stain, the grain and the imperfections in the wood would still be visible, and the variation in color between the brown and green tones would noticeably toned down.

Too shiny!

I really liked how deep the color looked without rubbing the stain off and decided to leave it on to dry. It's shinier than I want, but it's still a bit tacky (I've been picking dog hair out of it like crazy!) and hopefully will dry a bit flatter. If not, I'll spray a matte polyurethane over it to get the duller finish when it's completely dry.

Now, to get this thing hung... I decided to hang it with those plastic hooks with removable adhesive strips, since I'm guessing the wall I'm hanging it on is brick or some other equally hard surface that's too difficult to hammer a nail into. For good measure I used three of these hooks.

I was able to use the string mounted to the backside of the frame to hang this—that saved some extra work, plus in hanging it like this, it's easier to get level!

And, ...WALLAH! Here it is all put together! 

The camera's flash makes this print look more washed out than it is. 

And lastly, I'd just like to share with you that while I was hanging this and decorating my mantle today, my kid kept nagging me to rake leaves so that she and the dog could go play in them. Call me crazy, but I think it might still be a bit too early...

Happy Fall, y'all!

Picture This!

I have been searching for artwork to hang on my mantle for months. Prerequisites? First—it must be a landscape or nature scene, and secondly—in the style of a painting (as opposed to photography). Over the weekend I came across this little number (only $10!!) and knew I had found what I was looking for:

The scene depicts a view that is representative of the landscape where I live, which is exactly what I had in mind when I began my quest! Some of the colors are a little brighter than I might prefer, but I was willing to take it home to try it out. If I didn't like it I could always return it and continue my search. As it happens, once I had it placed on the mantle, the brighter colors seemed less apparent. I think this will work!

Now that I had my print, I wanted to find a frame for it. I went to a couple of craft stores with my half-off coupons in hand, but their frames in the size I needed start out at $50! And the face of the frame (the part you see when looking at the frame straight on) wasn't chunky enough for my taste (chunkier frames started at $125!). I am too cheap to pay those prices, even with a coupon! So I tried the second-hand stores. Imagine my glee when I found this framed print for only $18! This frame would be perfect!

It's hard to tell from the images, but the frame's face has some nice contouring and sculpting. I'm not too crazy about the green, but I think I can adjust that in a way with some paint and glaze that will better suited for my decor. While the artwork opening is an inch or so larger than I need it to be, I think this frame could be perfect for my new mountain print!

I began disassembling the print from the frame by removing the staples in the back. Imagine my agony when I stabbed myself with my poker tool in the index finger! Egads...

My next step was to free my mountain print from the frame it was stretch mounted to. After ripping away the brown paper on it's back, I painstakingly removed every staple around its edge and carefully unwrapped the edges from the frame. Next I sprayed adhesive onto the print that came with the frame; the original print was mounted on a sturdy board that was about 1/8" thick.

And... VOILA! Here is the framed print on my mantle.

It's bigger than I expected. As I mentioned, the frame's artwork opening is larger than I needed and so the edges of my mountain print that had been wrapped around the previous frame are now flattened and viewed as the rest of the image, so now my artwork appears bigger. I may end up cutting the frame and artwork down a couple of inches, but that was more work than I wanted to get into today. I guess I'll marinate on how much it's large size bothers me. Otherwise, I really like it and know I will like it even more once I make my artistic adjustments to the frame (of which I will have a subsequent post that will highlight the changes I make to the frame. Check back later!).

Mantle Redo

I found a print that I really liked for my fireplace mantle over the weekend that has inspired me to work on the fireplace this week (more on this new artwork in a subsequent post!).

The wall above the fireplace used to be dark purple (aka "Sweet Bark"). You can still see some of it that I haven't gotten to yet in other pics. Anyways, I primed the wall and painted it the cream color (Behr's "Wild Honey") that I have throughout other areas in my home. The mantle was a soft candlelight color while the brick fireplace was white, and not the freshest of whites either. Here you see the finished wall color with white primer on the brick and the mantle scraped and sanded down and ready for priming.

Here I'm in the middle of painting the brick (Behr's "Ultra White" in eggshell finish). It is astonishing how much brighter the finish coat is than the primer! I love how the white looks against the cream color! You may notice the mantle is primed now too.

Halfway done with the brick! Thank goodness the fireplace isn't any bigger than this. I was getting REALLY bored painting all of that brick. They have a lot of texture to them and it takes a lot of brush wiggling to get the paint in all of the grooves.

And... VOILA! Here's the brick, mantle, and wall all finished! I put Behr's "Ultra White" semi-gloss on the mantle—I want the mantle to have a little more shine than the brick. This will match all of my other woodwork, which will also be done in the semi-gloss. Will put a second coat on the mantle tomorrow.

By the way, did you notice that inset space on the brick just above the firebox? It's inset about an inch and is about 9"x 18". Why is that like that? Anyone?? Did homeowners put something in that void back in the day? That space is calling out to me. I feel like I should put something there. I found this pediment the other day and it will fit perfectly. What do you think of that idea? And if I decide to put it in there, should I leave it colored the way it is or paint the pediment white like the rest of the fireplace?

What do you think, Puppers?

BAH! She doesn't care...