It All Started...........

........Wednesday evening when Jeffy was on his way out the door to return some DVD's to Hollywood video. He paused at the door with one arm leaning on the entertainment center, staring at the fireplace, deep in thought and said, "Honey, you really don't like that light over the fireplace do you". That's the fireplace to the right it's recessed with a popcorn ceiling and one swively can light in the center. I confirmed for the hundreth time that I didn't like it and he decided to do something about it. He plucked that sucker right out of the ceiling!

With that accomplished he began wielding a box cutter and in no time had cut the drywall from the ceiling and removed the popcorn. What was left was a giant rectangle of a hole in the wall. I personally didn't know where he was going with this and neither did he so at that moment we were matched.

The discovery of a 2x8 or 4x8 or whatever it is proved problematic as there was no way to remove it without compromising the integrity of the structure, meaning the house would cave in, so he decided to work around it but in what capacity he didn't know and to which I was afraid to ask.

Undecided about what he intended to end up with, what else was he to do but cut out some more dry wall? Made sense to me! Yep, an arch shaped piece was extracted from the wall in front of the fireplace, cut above the 2x whatever, and moved to the back of the hole above the stone.

The next logical step was to venture into what Jeff considers his nirvana; whipping out the power tools. Mine is kitchen appliances. So out the back door we go to saw and sawdust heaven and we cut a bunch of 2x4's. That one I got right! Back into the living room we go, industrial nail gun in tow, and up they go into the shape of the arch. Not bad.

Now this is the part of the story where I cut out. After three anti-inflamatories to kill my gout, two hydrocodones, I told Jeff I only took one, and three good vodkas I was out for the count but when I wake up we have a whole new look to this fireplace. It's got great lighting and the whole thing really pulls the room together.

A bit of finishing, some stain and varnish and we are all set.

I adore that guy!

Up, Up and Awaaaaaayyy.....

.... in our beautiful, our beautiful new roooooom!

The thought of transforming a room is always fantastic. That's where the fantastic ends, at the thought. Jeff and I decided that the living room was going to be the first portion of the house that would benefit from having our little 'stamp' placed upon it and paint was the first order of business.

We both had no problem deciding what color we wanted; a warm mustard gold flat paint was the answer. After Jeff dropped his pants he came up with the calculation that we would need one gallon. In retrospect I should have dropped my pants too and carried the one. We needed two. Off to Lowes goes Jeff for the second gallon the next day.

The second can matched perfectly with the exception that they had sold him semi-gloss. After a bit of cursing in the most charming East Texas accent to be had he went back to the store to exchange it and now the re-paint job is pending.

The second portion of our Extreme Home Improvement involved taking our severly vaulted ceiling and dropping it to a level eleven feet and in the process creating a coffered ceiling to which the plans were written in ink; that means all in Jeff' head.

I must admit that little shit worked and always works damn fast and hard and he figured this would be a weekend project; ain't so.

Here is Mr. Handsome himself measuring off the wall for the project.

Note how damn sexy he is with a toolbelt! Yeh BABY!

Here's another shot from the other angle just so you realize both sides of him match.

Here he has the beams up.

Now comes the backing.......

...... and the boxes up!!

In the center of each box we now have recessed lighting!

All that remains is for us to agree on a stain color, place L-shaped trim around the outer edges of the boxes then varnish the whole thing.

Clever ain't he?????????????