Today we pulled out some of our Christmas decorations to start getting into the holiday spirit. I still have a majority of plastic decorations which will take us years to purge. As we get more natural things like pine cones, pine clippings and homemade ornaments, we’ll recycle the plastic decorations and get rid of them for good.
Last year at this time, we were gearing up to do major rehabbing of the dining room, to try and get it ready for Christmas. There was sheet rock dust everywhere, and then concrete everywhere from refacing the fireplace. Everyone worked tirelessly to get the house done by Christmas and we worked right up until the last moment painting, cleaning up, and finally decorating.
We had to use a little tree we got off of freecycle a few years prior because I didn’t want to get a fresh tree if we didn’t have a place to put it.
Here are some before and after photos:
Dom taking off the horrible iron railing
December 2011-Dom refacing the fireplace
Noah learned how to mix concrete for the fireplace
And so, with the dining room almost complete, we’re ready to get a Christmas tree early. We also have to fix one of the end chairs that busted.
In January we’ll be working on making a rustic farm table since the table we have has taken a beaten over the last several years.
We still have more decorating to do, but little by little we’ll get there. Tomorrow we’ll be going on our first Festive Forage, but since Dom has to work, we’ll be staying local.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I usually love brick fireplaces but I must say OMG your fireplace is now beautiful!!!
Hi Amanda,
We did a lot of debating as to whether to cover up the brick or not. At first we thought to paint it, then we decided to reface it. I thought the fireplace would look amazing in glass tile mosaic, but I’ve since come to love the simple look of concrete.
I do love brick too, but just not yellow brick. We have one more fireplace (same size) down stairs in the finished basement, and we’ll most likely reface that one too.