New Floors, Fireplace and backsplash

 After 11 years, we decided it was time to change our flooring in our house.  Since we were doing that, Joe thought it might be the right time to change the fireplace and I thought it was time to change the backsplash.  It took a while to figure out what we wanted, especially around the fireplace.  Joe wanted stone around it, but it was hard to find the right colors and where to get it.  We did find the perfect stone however.  It was  quite the process for the workers to put it in, but they did a fantastic job.

The living room all done.

It also gave me the push I needed to restyle above the cabinets.  Before they looked like this: you can also see the new backsplash in this picture.

After they looked like this

and this.  I found a blog post on pinterest that showed me that it looks good to group like things together.  Decorating does not come naturally to me, so it is nice to be able to find directions for how to do things online.

Close up of the backsplash.

We made sure to be thorough and do all of the rooms that connected, so we did the laundry room too.  Then, to make the laundry room look better, I painted the wood shelf in there white (its to the right in this picture).  It had been pine wood color since we bought for Adam's clothes when he was a baby.

This is how the living room ended up looking. We switched out all over carpet for the wood look tile and then added a shag area rug.  We switched the fireplace to be a stone covered wall with a wooden mantel that Joe made.  We added a wood top to the kennel that we made into a table (that's behind the couch). I love how it all turned out.