Holy Smokes we've finished the fireplace

This weekend we finally got our fireplace on the wall, can I hear a whoop whoop!! We had a bit of a saga getting from this:

To this:

As we had decided against the cost of making the chimney operational and that we would make do with some chunky candles instead we didn't have to be anywhere near as careful attaching our new surround. So we saved a fortune opening up the chimney, and plaster-boarding the brick wall instead of getting somebody in to do it for us.

We got our new wooden surround and cast iron fireplace from ebay and as ever it wasn't an easy task, despite being sold as a set the cast iron insert was the exact same size as the wooden surround. Therefore we couldn't guarantee it wouldn't fall out at a later stage. The ledge at the top also stuck out at the back which meant it was too far from the wall when we put it in place.

So we had to get handy (when I say we, I mean Rodney). He sawed off about a cm from the back of the ledge, then sanded it down nice and smooth, bingo, flat against the wall. Then we bought some wooden trim, spray painted it black then attached it to the inside of the wooden surround. After some careful measuring Rodney fixed it to the wall and we did a little celebration dance!!

We did some more measuring and fixed the mirror, that was delivered in November and was hiding in the boxroom, above the fireplace and our Ghana picture on the wall opposite. I also did what I have been waiting forever to do and arranged some candles and pictures on top of the fireplace Here is another picture:

Sweet-O, it's looking great on our newly painted walls (more on those later), but I wasn't entirely honest, there is still a tiny bit of skirting board needed at the bottom before we can say the fireplace is actually finished. But we are almost there.

In terms of the living room the walls are painted, the curtains and sideboard and our floor lamp has arrived, so we are ever so close to a finished room.....so exciting :-)