Brick By Brick

Or in our case, stone by stone, our fireplace is making progress. It's been a huge project and we still have a ways to go, but it's getting there. And so far we LOVE it!

The last time you saw are fireplace was shortly after we installed it. It looks kind of bare and lonely. =o(

But since then Travis built and plywood frame around it following code requirements (we were able to safely do this since our stove is what's considered zero clearance), as well as built and installed a sweet mantle milling the lumber himself with his Alaska mill (more on that to come, but since it's Travis' project I thought it'd let him write it).

After wrapping the frame with wire mesh like this:

We (i.e. Travis) applied a scratch coat and we were all ready to start putting up the rocks.

Yesterday afternoon we got the tile laid on the hearth and our firewood pad, too. The tile is the same as what we laid in our entry way this spring.
We got our tile in the spring and the rock was given to us at a later date by a friend who had some leftover from his own house, but we couldn't have coordinated the colors any better. They blend perfectly!
As you can see we still have a LOT of rock to put up, but it's getting there little by little. And in the mean time we just sit back and admire our handiwork. =o)

Tiling the Entry

The next project we tackled was tiling our entry way with some of the awesome slate tile we got in Boise (and completely weighed down the poor little car trying to haul it all back to McCall!). It's just a small area, but we really like the way it looks!

Travis started out by laying the HardiBacker and then screwed down some trim around the edge of it to mimic the height of our future bamboo floor. Then began the tedious process of laying the tile.

We love the natural slate tile, but because it's so "natural" it was very time consuming trying to match up the heights of all the tiles, arrange them the best we could so there weren't any drastic drops from one to the other and then use the mortar to even out the best we could!In "just" three hours we ended up with this!

Now we have a lovely, tiled entry way and it was worth all the time and patience it took to get it there (I think). I'm not sure we'll be quite so picky about the process when it comes time to lay the whole bathroom floor!