getting closer.

are you starting to get tired of all these fireplace room updates every week without ever getting to the grand reveal? yeah, us too. which is why we just keep going. and by we, i mean Mark. because while i do things like fun projects and inviting my friends to go to the beach with me for the day, Mark dutifully stays at home and keeps working hard and making progress. i love that guy so much.

this weekend, he put up the final layer of spackle around all the inside corners of the room, sanded them all down, and started priming! as of now all the corners and edges have been cut in, the whole ceiling has one coat of primer on it, and might take a second. but we'll need to pick up some more primer before we can keep going. apparently we didnt have enough left over after we painted the two bedrooms at the end of last summer.

and in what is probably one of the most exciting developments of the past few months, the plastic was taken down off of the doorway that leads into the front room!

i may or may not audibly squeal every time i walk through the front door and i can look through the doorway into the fireplace room. and now that the doorway is open, can you see the difference between the two ceilings?

L to R: old swirly stuff, doorway, extra wall thickness, nice new smoothness

and for my extremely important contribution of the weekend, i almost finalized the paint color for the walls. i have it narrowed down to two very similar shades of a nice neutral tan color that will not blend in with the floor, not overwhelm or clash with the brick fireplace, and will work with the furniture that we have. but i will need to get bigger paint chips in order to make a final decision.

we only have two more weekends before we leave for vacation. we still have to finish priming, paint, fix the doorways, paint the fireplace doors, and maybe replace the warped mantle. i'm really hoping we can fit most, if not all of it in before then. because we're already starting to think about the celebratory cookout we're planning to have at the end of the project and oh man is that going to be sweet.