Merry Christmas to me! (Livingroom reveal!)

That project I posted about in October got finished last week.  My livingroom went from being sadly outdated:

To beautifully timeless:

And I LOVE it… love it so very much!  It updates the whole house just like I thought it would.  And I have a wonderful new place to decorate for holidays and birthdays.  Which is always fun for the crafty at heart.   

We had to change a few things from the original design:

Finding faux brick to make the whole thing work proved to be the hardest part of this project and with some advice from the friend who built it for us (who is awesome!) we decided that instead of getting faux brick we would just build out over the brick and mirrors.  He built out about 3 inches on both sides with studs so that we could drywall right over the top of everything and still have space to put up pictures. Then he built a mantel to fit over the top of the concrete one that was there, and put in the side columns to pull the whole thing together. 

Then I puttied, sanded, and painted the whole thing a nice white color and could hardly wait to put up my Christmas décor.  I was feeling grateful that I could go to sleep and let the paint dry while I slept… I may have ruined the paint with sheer excitement!

Some details:

I feel like I got pretty spoiled this Christmas.  I got this beautiful new mantel, a new phone, and a new wool coat in my new favorite color: red.  I feel downright pampered right now! 

I’m starting off my New Year warm and bright with tons of new inspiration for my new space! 

Blessings to all of you!.