Ok, lets talk about this fireplace. We have made a little progress on it by scraping off all the old paint and re-painting but that is about as far as we have gotten so far (look here to see it in its original state).

There are a few things that need desperate attention and a few things I am still trying to figure out how to tackle. Like #1, the wall around the fireplace is just plain cinder block and it is not pretty. It kind of makes you feel like you are in someones not quite finished basement. So, one plan I had is where #2 comes in. That is the same wood that we are going to use on the bedroom ceiling and I got to thinking it could cover the wall of the fireplace making a nice horizontal & subtle linear pattern (that is one option but I am open for other suggestions). Then comes in #3 which is a big fat brick shelf that extends halfway over the fireplace and makes it very hard to style around. I thought of extending it all the way over to the left side by creating a wood shelf to go over it but that really cuts down the wall space. I would love to get rid of it entirely but I don’t think that is an option. Finally, #4 is the tile on the hearth. Right now it is a bricky red color. In the photo I placed a section of the marble that we used in the bathroom to see how that would look and I think I am liking it but I’m not sold on that idea yet.

So, here I did a little rough rendering that shows what it would kind of look like with the wood slats on the wall and my attempt at styling around that odd shelf.

Like shown messily in my rendering above, we plan to make curtains out of the fabric that I used for my smilebooth background shown here. The prints above the fireplace I saw in the Dwell Studio section at HD Buttercup and fell in love. I may make something myself for this spot but for now they show the look I am going for perfectly. At first I wanted to stack the second one directly above the other one but that just made the entire wall really heavy on that left side. By moving it over to the right (around the annoying shelf) and adding the little set of horns, I was able to visually center the arrangement over the fireplace. I plan on putting something large scale but very delicate, like the arrows, above the shelf on the right side to balance it out without weighing down the entire wall.

I am also still on the hunt for a perfect little chair for that nook but I might just have to get that little zebra pillow (also from Dwell Studio). Thoughts?
To see all the cabin progress done so far, look here.

Image and rendering done by sarah