I’m back! Can I tell you it’s been a hectic and crazy week? To top it off, I worked until 8 tonight and our family room tv just died. I had such big plans of relaxing tomorrow night and catching up on all of the How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family and Jersey Shore that I missed this week. RIP Plasma, you were our first major purchase back in 2005 and you will be sorely missed. Especially by me. Especially this weekend. Because really, who wants to drop all of that cash on a new tv unexpectedly?? Not me.

Anywho, while we’re on the topic of the family room, I came across the coolest idea ever on Pinterest a few weeks ago. Remember our fireplace?

We originally wanted a chunkier, more dramatic fireplace surround that the builder offered, but it was too wide for our floor plan. Since then we’ve been trying to come up with ways to make it a little less generic builder looking. We added the tile to it (the same tile from our kitchen back splash) and we plan to paint the slate, metal and gold hardware one of these days.

Going back a few months ago, I spotted another image on Pinterest that got the hamster in my head running on his wheel. Why don’t we add some molding above the fireplace!

(via Design*Sponge found on Pinterest)

I liked it, but the arch just isn’t us. I liked the idea of it much more (plus the curtains and the rug). Plus the layout is identical to ours. So I searched a bit and found one much more my style, enter contender numero dos.

(via Bethany Christensen Design found on Pinterest)

I love the squareness of it and that chunkiness we’ve been aiming for. But, the style of this mantel is completely different than ours. We have that funny dental molding and our opening is framed out with a thinner molding. I wasn’t sure if this would translate well for us, so I pinned it and went about my life.

Then recently this showed up in my Pinterest feed…

(via 6th Street Design School found on Pinterest)

Not only does the fireplace itself (at least the mantel part) look like ours, but the whole getup looks like ours. When I first showed Mike from a distance, he thought I had worked some photo shop magic. The best part of this one (besides that I can totally get how ours would look like), is that it is probably the easiest to do out of the 3. Those straight pieces of wood? No ridiculously raised part that would eat my mantel? The fact that my mirror would work with it? Love it.

Admittedly, the only thing I’m missing is a nice chunk of crown molding at the top to mirror the mantel. But I guess that’s a tweak we could add on our own. You know, whenever we get around to finishing the other molding projects we’ve started around here 🙂

Now I’m off to stare at a dead tv… 🙁