Now that is RED!

We started a new project this week: The Fireplace. It's brick, but has been painted at least twice before. When we moved in, the brick was a pink-y, beige-y color. Not my taste at all. I had painted the wall above the mantle in our old condo a burnt red and really loved it. All of our decor went with it and I just love red as an accent color. So we decided to try it again in the new house.

Here's the fireplace right as we started painting:



Samson watches over us and isn't really sure what to make of it all:



And here's the fireplace after the first coat - Wowsa!



It's showing up a bit brighter in the photos then it really is (I was going for a more burnt, brown-y red), but it is still pretty bright. The Husband put a second coat on last night so it's a little darker/better, but I am just not sure. He also painted the mantle white, so I don't know if that makes the red even brighter or not. Either way, the red really makes the fireplace stand out and look bigger. Before, when it was that pink-y beige, it just kind of blended into the room, because the walls/wallpaper were all beige. Now...not so much.

What do you think?

Our new digs: Christmas edition

Here are the before pictures of the house and the after pictures of what we've done so far. We've painted the 3 bedrooms, painted the kitchen, replaced the floor in the kitchen, pulled out the carpet in the living room to expose the hardwoods underneath, and replaced the carpet in the family room.

Before:















And after, starting with the master bedroom:
























There's still lots of work to be done. After the holidays, we want to take down the wallpaper in the family room and paint the fireplace brick (red) and the walls (a tan color). We also want to paint the living room, foyer, upstairs hallway, 2nd bathroom. We have a HUGE main bathroom that we'd like to update as well. So you can see, lots of projects. Closet doors still need to be painted and hung back up, curtains need to be hung. The biggest project we have in our future is to gut the kitchen and really make use of all the empty wall space and creat a warm, functional gathering place.

Hope you all enjoyed my first house tour. MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!