The Fireplace

First of all, sorry for the ever-changing look here at the bloggy blog.  I am trying to settle on one I like.  This is a pretty good one. 

But back to the Homefront.  One of the biggest perks of owning a home is the ability to do as you choose with the space.  There is no one else (ahem parents) telling you don't hang that there, you can't paint that....you are free to decorate as you see fit.  But wallpaper and paint are easy fixes.  It might be a pain, but there is no huge financial out associated with choosing a bad paint color, just re-paint it.  But every once in a while, something will get to me.  As in, if I change this, everyone that ever lives in this house after me will have to deal with it.  FOREVER.  So permanent.  The first place I encountered this was my little fireplace.  When I moved in, it had a cover over it since it had major smoking problems.  Our chimney sweep told us it would be best if we never used it.  That was not going to be OK.  I love fires in the winter time.  So I had to find a fix.  And a few bids (with very scary price tags) later, Stud and I were thinking, maybe that chimney sweep was right.... Enter brilliant parentals.  The problem is our firebox is too large and can't draw, hence smoke spewing into the living room.  So my parentals suggest raising the grate up on bricks so the fire is closer to the flue.  BRILLIANT.  We still have minor smoke problems before the fire gets really hot, but we can use it and at zero cost!

Anyways, once the cover was off and we could enjoy fires, Stud and I were left with a rather unattractive brick fireplace with major smoke stains from years of use.  So I go out, but a quart of glossy black paint and sit down to paint the brick black.  Then it hits me.  The fireplace will be black (or another color) forever.  Unless someone wants to get a sandblaster in here, what I was about to do would be the same forever.  The paint can sat there for a few days while I pondered if this was really something I wanted to do.  The brick wasn't bad, it was just cheap bricks.  It wasn't something I could un-do.  Did I really want to?  How would it look??  I googled images, looked in magazines, and finally decided I did want to paint the brick black.  And you know what, I love it!  I think it displays the mantle better as well as all the brass fireplace goo gah.  The brick was distracting and now that it is painted black, it not only looks better, but also cleans up the whole look of the fireplace.  Whew.