Cleaning the fireplace area...

I know not too exciting of a title :)

We for the past few years have had a gigantic eliptical machine in our living room. It took up so much room! Finally we decided to try and sell it, I posted it on Craigslist on Monday evening and Tuesday it was SOLD!! I was so happy just to have the room back, it used to be next to our fireplace. That area now is all open and so nice to see it that way again. I figured it would be a good time to do some major cleaning of the fireplace area. This means that I took everything down, vacuumed the entire fireplace, scrubbed all the brick and then put things back, different things. I wanted to display the folk dolls that I received in the FRIENDS swap from Debbie.

Here are some before pictures~
When we had the eliptical machine~See how much room it took up!

Here is the whole fireplace area~

Here is a close up of the mantle~

This is mid progress~

This doily was made by my grandmother, isn't is just so pretty~

This tea kettle we put water in when we use the fireplace (we take the doily off) and it heats up and lets a small amount of steam into the room, very nice when it is so dry in the winter

This little bench has special meaning to me, it was made by my older brother the same year that I was born. He was in middle school. It means a lot to me since my brother was killed in a head on collision by a drunk driver in March of 2002. It is something I treasure very much.

This is a train lantern and I think it is just too cute~

Here it is all done~

This is a close up of the mantle ~



I was just reading over at DeNiece's blog she was talking about not being a perfect wife or mother and I left a comment about how I was just the other day feeling like such a failure as a homekeeper and that I plan a post about it this week all the feelings that I had on the subject and the things I did to try to get back on the right track.

Blessings,Joann