We Didn't Start the Fire

But we sure did make it pretty again.  And by we, I mean Ed - the super hero of saving sad looking fireplaces!

We have one in our basement and up until a few days ago, it looked like this:

Not so terrible in this photo, but up close, it was dirty and peeling and had an awful gold door.  

Not cute.  

When the door came off, we were served up some of this:

Really not cute.

You gotta love the previous home owner who painted around the door rather than take the time to take the darn thing off!

Well, it was nothing a paint can and some brushes couldn't fix.  Super Hero Ed to the rescue! He spent lots of time stripping the gross caulk from the brick and cleaning out the fire box, but once that was done, he revived this ugly duckling and made her beautiful again.

Since these photos were taken, we adorned her with a new fireplace screen obtained from Target - photos to come during the big basement reveal, but here is a preview of the screen:

I have to tell you, I'm not a big fireplace person because I am deathly afraid of having a fire in my house.  But now that our fireplace is so pretty, I might consider a toasty, crackling fire on a cold, cold night (not uncommon these days!).  After a proper chimney inspection and cleaning of course.  What I am most excited about is styling the mantle.  I have some ideas in mind and have started collecting items and can't wait to get everything up and running.  Who knew a fireplace could be so much fun!