Good to catch up with everyone! Summer is always a busy time here. Lots of visitors who want to go the the ocean, and that means the whole day. Then having something cooked so when we get back we can have dinner. When my son and dil are here with their 4 little ones, it is VERY busy, and it takes a few days of down time to catch up with chores, etc. I do try to keep up with some blog events, and today I posted pics of the kitchen improvements we did.. I will link it so you can look if you like..I know some of you asked.. Betty, Congrats! How wonderful! Hope your dh is doing well too! Mo, good thoughts for you! Hope all turns out well. Speaking of which, Jane was having some medical concerns too, so please have positive thoughts for her too! OA, that's great! What do you use to show movies? An outdoor projector of some kind? It plays dvd's?? Cool! That would be great for here at the beach pavilion..although we have gnat issues here.. No bugs at night by you? Mary Ruth, I thought you had moved already! I remember when you said you were taking a break from HTE and Wicker Chair to get ready for the move.. And how is Judith? I know you are good friends.. Jay, good to hear from you too...You have been busy! DD have a good trip to the US! I have never been to your fair country! NCNana, we do out share of babysitting too.. 8 yo gdau has been a cast since school got out, and she won't get it off till Sept. Terrible time to break your arm..roller blades..ugh! Luvs, so good of you to start this thread.. Lynne, best wishes for your dau..I will pray for her.. and thank her for her service for me! Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen updates

The first thing I'd do is replace that little hanging light fixture in the entryway. With that massive wall of brick, something more substantial would look better. The fireplace has simple, modern lines, and neither the light fixture nor the mantle work with that. A simpler (but again, substantial) mantle would look better. It actually looks like the fireplace was designed to not have a mantle at all, and i'll bet you could just remove that awful one and leave it unadorned. You could try a large potted plant (real or a good fake) on the side of the fireplace where that can is. That would soften things up. The great thing about plants is they go with any decorating style. Last but not least, if you don't want to hang art in the entryway you could hang a huge framed mirror on the back of the fireplace. You'll probably want to hang something large and framed on the front too. Just my two cents' worth, but since you asked...

That is a really nice set Rebbecamom. I think your concern was wixe because, from the photos, it looks like the cabinets projecting at the side of the fireplace may cross the zone where you shouldn't have combustibles with a wood fire. At least for our wood burning fireplace, the installation instructions say there should be no combustibles in front of a line that goes out from the side of the firebox at 45 degrees for 24" on each side of the fireplace up to some height above the fireplace. I don't know how universal that requirement is, so perhaps your set up would have been okay with your fireplace. We put in a wood burning fireplace for the family room that is sealed so there is no issue with embers or sparks. It heats the family room really well and provides the look of real flames, but one can't hear the crackling of the fire. Also, we don't feel comfortable running it when our little grandchildren are visiting because the glass gets really hot - if we were going to run it with small children around, we would probably want to put a protective fence of some sort around it which would not help ambiance. It uses external air intake which can be adjusted to control how hot the fire burns and to damp down the rate of burn. It is nice to not have to worry about leaving the fire going when we go to bed. For the living room fireplace, we are considering putting in a gas log set - we have never used that fireplace and have no need of running it for heat, but it would be nice to turn it on occasionally for looks when using the room. We don't need two heating fireplaces and I don't want to deal with wood in the living room.

It was a bit pricey - but in my opinion totally worth it. I think it was 500-800 for all the install work (they need to do it, this is not a diy project) and 3500 for the actual unit. The different fronts were different prices but all the ones we considered were in the same general range. Oh, and I wanted to mention that our chimney breast was covered all the way up tot he ceiling in faux 70's stone. So we ended up framing in the whole thing and dry-walling. That did give us some extra room for the insert. There are just certain measurements in terms of the studs that you need to make sure are correct. We are also planning on installing a mantel. We bought a wooden one from construction junction but it isn't going to work out. That cast iron front sticks out about an inch from the wall. Just fyi. We did find a stale Victorian one on craigslist that sticks out from the wall. But if you are considering wood, you may need to go custom. The fireplace installers did have resources for mantels that would fit these models though.