Fireplace

When we first moved into our house, the fireplace looked like this. Up close you can see that is spackle all over the surround. Not real attractive. I knew what I wanted but I thought it would be really expensive to get stone there. Then my painter came, who was reasonably priced, and had a friend, that he said was also reasonable, and did all kinds of tile work and could probably do this. So I called Chuck, he took a look at it, said he could take down the old, put in the new in one day and it wasn't even close to how expensive I had imagined, so I excitedly committed.
Today he came. What a difference!

Its slate on the base and the surround is called ledger stone. It was a project for him to get all the double tile and spackle off. He had to cut through the dry wall, get new cement board to put behind it, then voila! I love it.
I'll show you how great it looks with the sofa when I get the rug in and you can see the final room. For now I'm just happy it looks good, and I like it with my picture above as well.

Since MyMike was working in the garage all day, LittleBuddy and I slipped away to visit a nearby museum. He didn't want to go to the museum until I told them he could pan for gold. Then he was very excited! He found a few flecks of fools good, but nothing real. Still, it was fun for him, and gave him a taste of how challenging it really is.
We also saw several different steam engines that they used in the 19th century to dig for gold. This one's wheel did 300 revolutions in a minute. We learned a lot about those and got a good feel for the early miners in Colorado.
Memories of a Saturday in Colorado. Oh, and after I got home MyMike got a snowblower. The big snows here come in Mar. and April, so now he's prepared. The average snowfall here is over 7 feet / year. We haven't seen near that yet, so we expect some good snow soon. MyGirl's favorite thing about snow is now - seminary is canceled, even with sleeping in now. Oh well.