Years ago E’s mother bought a can of brown paint for a small project. Not one to waste anything, she ended up painting every available surface brown until the paint was gone. We came over one day and even the fireplace had been painted.

Under the category of what were we thinking? We put a window behind the fireplace.

I can tell you what I was thinking. How hot could it get? I want as much of a view as possible. No, I don’t want to put the fireplace behind the seating. I want to be able to look at the view and the water.. I want it all. No, I am not listening to everyone’s advice. It will be fine. Let’s just try it. So we did.

We put a lovely window behind the fireplace on December 16th. Four weeks later E replaced the shattered glass with a beautiful tiled wall. sigh.. Oh well… I can still look at the fireplace along with the view… just not as much as before.

Last spring when this all began, Craig dug a really deep hole and poured a ton of concrete under the corner of the house where the fireplace sits. The added shear wall from the newly tiled area is a bonus. That corner of the house is the strength of our perch… We are now firmly attached.

Craig is finishing, as he says, the last 5% of the interior of the house.. The trim.. I imagine this is the fun part for him where he gets to use his artistic talents. Dreary jobs like digging trenches for foundations are long over.

E and I are pretty flexible and have no preconceived ideas. As Craig moves from task to task, the three of us decide on things like the height of baseboards, the shape of door trims etc … We had leftover back splash tile and like E’s mother I hate to see anything go to waste. So I asked that we incorporate it into the living room baseboards. This is what Craig came up with… When all of the trim is done, it will all be stained to match the fir posts and beams.

Today, E is painting the trim around the windows black, to frame the view.

:Craig is creating a breakfast bar to attach to the kitchen island. I told him how high I wanted it, how I see it being used etc. and then left it up to him. There are some interesting pieces of wood milled and sitting in my hallway and I am pretty excited to see what he has in mind.

We still have some back splash tile left over. Maybe I could tile a  coffee table top or what about the front of the fridge?  How would the

fridge look tiled?