What took the longest on this fireplace project was not the work, but the decision making. We cruised along through the framing and even the stone was an easy choice.  We freecycled the mantle our of a tree that had fallen  at the end of the street, we really llove the natural look of it, but are not sure if we want to leave it “raw, or add some color?

Hubby wanted to have a hearth, I think he is envisioning that cheery Christmas card photo in front of this beauty. This is where we hit a major stall. Since we added this hearth we cannot figure out what to put there, stone won’t work, we can’t find a tile, granite or marble that we like with the stone and wood, plus I don’t think we want to add any more types of material to this project.

We decided on the tile in the picture…it is a bit dark but we think it works best :

We really love the way it is turning out we jsut have to finish the hearth and do something with the matle…stay tuned!