YAY!

When we were house hunting, one of the things on my must-have list was a fireplace. I wanted cozy fires in the winter, but mostly I wanted to decorate the mantel for all the various holidays. We found a house we love. We bought it. It has a fireplace...but no mantel. Grr! I wish I had a before picture of our fireplace - the previous owners thought it would be a good idea to sponge-paint it gray, black and red....in fact they thought sponge painting was a good thing in general. There was a ton in this house! We painted it a nice, rich brown - "Wrightsford" by Kelly Moore to be specific. Anyways, it looked good but was still missing a mantle. I've been nagging and nagging my husband since we moved in March and yesterday he finally gave in!

This morning, Leila helped paint the wood:

And after everything dried Tony put up the mantle and this is what we came home (from storytime) to:
It's nice and simple, and exactly what I was wanting! Bring on the holidays - I can't wait to decorate!!