Brilliant Idea ...

I've been working on a big redo in our house. Well, it's turning into a big redo. It was supposed to be a simple project of working my spice colored velvet sofa into the living room, and it just got bigger. I'm not ready to show pictures, for two reasons:

1. 

I've got two different clients right now. My sunroom is filled with things from one, and my dining room filled with things for the other. I've also got stacks of boxes in my foyer from the Tour of Homes in Lewiston, this year. It's impossibly to get a good picture of my house right now. 

2. 

I've filled this blog with half finished pictures, and going back through them - I really don't think that they're good examples of my process or my work. Since my intention is to finish this space beautifully, I'm going to take the advice of my other friends who blog about their houses, and wait til' I'm ready to show you the finished project. 

So anyway, I've been struggling with the fireplace mantel, as I always do. I hate this fireplace. If I had it my way, I'd rip the whole thing out. But since, I can't - I just have to deal with it. Tonight, while searching for inspiration on something else, I ran across this image: 

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It was like all of a sudden, a light went off, and I knew exactly what to do above my fireplace. All this time I couldn't decide what I would be happy with for longer than a couple of days - and then this artistic approach to a semi-permanent solution meant, I DON'T HAVE TO DECIDE! Right now, I'm loving coat of arms, crests, shields, and all things medieval ... but next week I might be into modern art, or architectural salvage ... or kitty cats, who the heck knows with me! With a chalkboard above the fireplace, I can draw my art de'jour.

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Turns out, I'm not the only one who thought that it was a good idea, though. In fact, once I got my bit of inspiration from the first image, and went ahead searching with chalkboards over the fireplace specifically, there were several inspiration pics: 

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This isn't a chalkboard, but it's a prime example of what one could do if they had a chalkboard over their fireplace. 

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Even this is really beautiful. A sort of art-school face sculpting in scenes. But even if you didn't go to art school, (and I didn't) you could definitely mimic high end art like Cy Twombly's: 

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Still, I think that I'm going to do something a little less modern for the time being, and get myself a beautifully carved, gilt frame and try my hand at drawing something like these: 

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Very definitely excited about this new found brilliance ... although, it wasn't nearly as brilliant as I had once thought. It will be great once it's finished, and that'll be along to show you soon enough. For those of you who miss my days of color, you're gonna be happy! 

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!