Surfaces; fireplace revisited

Here's a nicer photo of the family room fireplace. I used the flash to fill the shadows a little bit. It looks pretty nice!

Here is a photo showing some slate we may use for the kitchen backsplash. It's the same type of slate we used for the floor, but it's not honed.

The photo above and the one below are showing some tiles we are interested in for the master vanity top. We had to give up our granite top because the sinks didn't line up properly with the base cabinet. Oh, well -- I guess it goes on Craigslist...


Above I'm showing an interesting detail with the glass tiles. We may do something like this for the master shower stall. We're planning on using "Ivory" Travertine in the shower & it's a little plain so we're looking at adding some other kinds of visual interest

Our front hall, with the slate. It's been stuck down but no grout yet. We decided on the grout color yesterday. It will be a light gray -- the slate has so many different colors going on that we went with a very neutral color.

The front door will be going in soon, replacing the construction door. We have decided on a light stain color -- "fruitwood" -- to complement the fir.

Fireplace, with attitude

Here is our hard-won stone on the wall. It happens to be near a fireplace. Odd. Anyway, it's good fireproofing . We collected the stone from the same quarry we used for the exterior, but we chose stone that was thinner and more uniform, for a slightly more refined look. It still is kinda rustic, but that's OK. Oh, we "only" got about 1500 lbs this time. It cost $30, not counting our time and gasoline.


And for scale, here's Lisa in front of the new fireplace. There's the attitude ;). We decided to forgo a mantel, because we will have built-in shelves on either side. Plus, due to current code requirements, a wood mantel would have to be 5 feet above the fireplace. Maybe that's to keep those highly flammable Christmas stockings away from the fire....but that height would not be very convenient for Lisa.

Note:
We got the rock on Monday, unloaded it, washed it, and sorted it into piles on the back patio (then went home and collapsed). By the end of Tuesday, a lot of it was up around the fireplace. But do the math -- 1500 lbs *4 (the number of times we moved each stone).....6000 pounds, or 3 tonnes worth of work.

These photos were taken by our contractor with his cell phone.