Oh what a week it's been!!  We had a great time seeing and hanging out with Aris. Then came back and got right to work!  First thing on Monday evening Steve changed a bunch of the light switches in the house. We had an inordinate amount of dimmer switches around here, Don't get me wrong, I love ambiance as much as the next gal, but really, who need mood lighting in the bathroom Especially the one without a shower or tub!?!!  Switches are awesome!!

Then, on Tuesday, to add a little more complication to our lives, we agreed to watch my Mom and Step-dad's two dogs for a couple of nights, one of them is only 3 months old! What were we thinking?!!  3 Dogs!!  Luckily they did pretty well!  The hardest part was when they all wanted to go out at different times!! I still managed to put contact paper on a few more shelves.

Then Wednesday - a new furnace!! The older one (the original from 1965) did a pretty good job of heating the place, but was HIGHLY inefficient the new one is a lot smaller and is capable of being hooked up the AC and now we have the option of a "mini-split" which, I understand, is a smaller unit that hooks into the main unit, and can be place in a room if for some reason (like the configuration of the house) it isn't getting warm or cool enough.

On Thursday it was more cleaning, unpacking, and returning the dogs. Steve also started the fireplace project.

When we had the house inspected, the inspector was quite taken aback that someone would place a beautiful lacquered wooden bench right underneath the fire place! It really was beautiful, but even I could figure out it was a bad idea! Our plan is to remove the bench,

 and add a tiled flat hearth,

First the mortar,

then the hardie board.

lots of down time to dry, but finally on Saturday, a beautiful work of Art!!!