Yes, it's done!

An extra guy came on Friday to speed the fireplace along and they finished it!  We had some minor adjustments to make while they were here, so they didn't finish until 5, but they "got 'r done"!  Chris had asked that they put the stone right up to where the TV bracket and dish box are, just in case the TV doesn't cover as far as we would think or if we ever didn't want a TV there and hung a picture (originally the guy left a space just smaller than the TV in the recess that didn't have block).  After they added more block, we got to talking and they had only left space enough for the bracket, but to hang the TV you have to slide the bracket into place so we needed extra space above the bracket (here's a picture so you can kind of see what I'm talking about).

Here is a picture of the fireplace, mid-day on Friday.  I have decided (to my sister's dismay) that we are not going to post a final picture until the painting is all done!  It will kind of a "final reveal" since I don't really know how I want to decorate the mantle and we can't hang the TV yet, the carpet isn't stretched (still undecided if we do laminate now or wait and have the carpet restretched now) PLUS there is a 2x4 holding up the mantle while it sets up and we can't take that down until Monday ~ same with hanging the TV, wait until Monday. 

This is another thing we had them change on Friday.  If you looked at the fireplace from the front, the guy had built the wall out assuming the fireplace was centered perfectly on the wall ~ it's not!  The only problem is you don't notice it until they have all the block up. . .  They ran out of corner block so when we went out to the kitchen we were admiring the block when Chris noticd that you could see about an inch more of black from the fireplace on the right side compared to the left!  We panicked because the wall was all built, the mesh stuff attached, etc., etc. . .  Well, after thinking about it a little, we decided to ask them if they could pull off the stone on the right and add more mortar behind them to "bump them out" and it worked!!  Now you will never know the wall isn't perfectly built!  (side note, the right side of the pictures is at the end of this post ~ Blogger changed a bunch of things and now I can't get the pictures to work for me like I want!!  I don't have time to fix it either ~ headed to town for more supplies and maybe a new ceiling fan for our living room!!!)

Steph found this really cute idea on the internet for Josey's first birthday.  You cut fabric out in the shape of a '1' and sew it onto a shirt, then embroider the birthday girls' name over the '1'!  It is super cute and I could hardly wait to get started!  Yesterday Chris went to Menards and I swung into JoAnn's.  I found this super cute  (do you feel like you are watching Sesame Street and the word of the day is "super cute"?  LOL) Valentine's fabric and it's fitting since Josey's birthday is in Feb!  It even has irridescent sparkles on it and you really can't tell in the pictures but the embroidery thread I found is irridescent too!  They don't recommend it for embroidery, but I wanted to try since there wasn't anythying else that would look as cute!

If you enlarge this picture, you can see the sparkles.  We are going to get a black shirt, put the one on it in the pink heart material and Josey will go across.  I'm going to play with my machine and see if I can't get the 'Josey' to be a little bolder or wider.  I'm still pretty new at this embroidery thing and the pictures on the touch screen of my sewing machine don't really make sense, so I have to look everything up in the book.  Which reminds me, I better tell Steph to grab a couple of shirts, just in case!  They are only $3 at Target this week, on special!  No better time to try ~ hehe :D  Wish me luck!!!

Oh crap, they changed the settings on blogspot and took the spell checker off!  WTH?  I need that! :~)  Please forgive any spelling errors!