Fireplace Project
It is my dream to drywall in front of our existing living room fireplace wall, recess a flatscreen and install a sleek, modern fireplace. Maybe someday. But for now, I wanted to update our wood burning fireplace and make it more usable for us. We never burn a fire – too messy, smelly, and too much work. Instead, I burn candles in the fireplace. I wanted to use some left over tile we had to create a new envelope for the firebox. Now our fireplace is clean and easy!

Fireplace Before

Yuck!
Fireplace After!

Closeup
Dining Room Renovation
I am so happy and so proud to post that our dining room renovation is complete. It has been a work-in-progress really from the day we moved in. It was painted but left essentially empty for a long time. I had been painstakingly searching for a dining room table & chairs for about the last year or so and I finally found the set I wanted last Thanksgiving. We bought the table then and then bought all of the chairs with the money/gift cards from our wedding in March. Since the arrival of the furniture, I ordered a custom rug through Masland, created the wine display panels, installed the pendant fixture, and bought all new accessory items.
I’m not sure what my favorite part is. I love the table – it is absolutely gorgeous, and the chairs are so comfortable – truly worth waiting for. The rug is even more beautiful than I thought it was going to be, but the wine display panels are my own personal creation which may take the cake. Overall, everything turned out very nice and I love this room!!! I can’t wait to entertain all of our family and friends here now.

Dining Room during our walk-thru 2 years ago.

Our Dining Room now! See slideshow below for more.
Mycroburst
Mycroburst.com is a new website I just read about. It allows designers to browse various design challenges, submit their work, and potentially win a “prize”. Right now they are only accepting designer’s registrations, but hopefully they will soon open the contest postings so I can check them out. Might be a good way to practice designing things like logos, business cards, posters, etc. and I might even win some cash which wouldn’t hurt either! I think it would also be interesting to see how other designers solve the challenge – wonder if you will be able to view all of the entries or not…
Photoshop Plug-In Collection
Here is a really amazing blog with many, many free Photoshop plug-in downloads that can make life a lot easier and faster.
Photos Galore
Great ways to find images!
Flickr Search Engines:
18 Free Stock Photo Sites:
- Public-domain-photos.com
- ImageBase
- FreePhotosBank.com
- FreeJPG
- Cepolina Photos
- Studio25
- Visipix
- Burning Well
- tOfz
- stock.diwiesign.com
- UnProfound
- Abstract Influence
- FreeFoto
- unices.org
- Amygdela’s atmosphere
- ZURBphotos
- star29
- Photogen
(originally posted by Matt Keeler on Lunarpages)











