Fireplace Finagling

Something is wrong with me.  This is my second post this week and it's only wednesday.  I suppose my priorities just might be all messed up this week;)  

I wanted to show you my sad attempt at trying to envision some plans for our fireplace. 

I know it's bad.. I can't bring myself to take the time to learn photoshop so it will have to do but it helps right?  I'm a very visual person and it makes me nervous to go throwing tile on a fireplace or playing with herringbone patterns and not know if I will like it or not.

Part of me wants to do some fun design in white trim above the mantle but we may do something like the herringbone pattern( on a smaller scale than my crummy pic) instead?

We have chosen this grey penny tile and gray slate trim to go around the fireplace opening.  

We were originally going to pick a slab of grey lueders stone for the hearth but decided it may look dingy against the white paint.  Soo....we are going to build a concrete hearth!  Yippe.  You may have seen the not so detailed post about how we did our concrete countertop 9 years ago in the first house?

Well we are going to play with concrete again!

 Below is the grey lueders with our tile selection.

After hubs built the new mantel and put it up temporarily we used blue tape to envision the outline of the tile.  See how the tape stops way above the floor?  The hearth will sit fairly high so we have an extra place to sit in the living room if need be.

After the sheetrockers came out to patch the holes from taking down our old rustic mantle we then painted the fireplace wall a bright white.

 Wanna see another look I'm thinking about?  Think stencil but a little more 3D.  Confused?  Me too..but I may just have to try a little something.  If I do I will show you if it is a success or not;)

So what do you think?  Again if we do the herringbone it will be smaller in scale and probably brighter white.  Either way...it will be something we can change in the future when we tire of it and you know what it?  It probably won't happen until things settle down after we move so I have time to play and think about it but it is nice to see it in a picture!

Wondering what's happening at the casa?  The stone work is finally all done.   I'll show you a pic on facebook later.  And...we are getting measured for countertops today!