The last time I shared a home update was April 23. Can you believe it has been five months? And I waited all of this time for a set of pillows that I ordered in March. They were supposed to arrive in May, but because of supply chain issues we didn’t get them until September. I’m not sure they were worth waiting five months to share our living room remodel with you, even though I am happy with how they turned out.
One of my least favorite features of this place when we first bought it was the fireplace. The tile surround was a bit dated and the mantle disappeared into the wall. It wasn’t a statement mantle, like I preferred. So even in the two days before the fire, I was dreaming up ways to give the fireplace a little facelift.
As you may remember from previous posts, our place had to be gutted, nearly everything had to be replaced. So instead of the fireplace getting a little facelift, the whole thing had to be replaced. Now I could do whatever I wanted. Eric and I really struggled on choosing a fireplace. A lot of people had a lot of opinions on which fireplace to go with and we visited a few sketchy fireplace stores in town. Finally, a friend of mine recommended we visit American Heritage Fireplace and we finally found a salesperson who listened to our wants and needs and was able to point us in the right direction. I should also mention that we were a month or so from our supposed move-in date and anxiety was HIGH.
We wanted to create a space that was warm and welcoming. A space that we could relax in, invite friends over to watch movies, or read. We wanted to strike a balance between being comfortable and beautiful.
There were moments during the reconstruction process that were really difficult. Moments when I thought we’d never get to move back in. Moments when we considered selling the place and cutting our losses. We’ve lived here now for about 8 months and our place still isn’t completely finished. However we’ve hosted friends over for dinner, invited our neighbors down for happy hour and Ted Lasso watch parties. We celebrated Eric’s birthday here. It feels like home, not like a construction project anymore. We are creating beautiful memories here with family and friends, something we didn’t have before the fire and during the reconstruction process. There are evenings when Eric and I turn to each other and marvel at how far we’ve come. What a beautiful environment we created for ourselves. How we got through some really dark days and are now reaping the benefits of tremendous loss.
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