Knock Down!

So we've never really liked the brick fireplace in our house. I've always been afraid that the kids would hit their head on the hearth especially when they were learning how to walk. During Christmas I had it covered with a white blanket in an attempt to make it look like snow. We've always talked about changing it but have never got around to it. Sunday night Dionys decides to hit it with the hammer to see if the bricks come loose at all. He tapped the corner and nothing happened. I went and tried to lift the brick and with my super human strength it just popped right off. So all the kids started taking the bricks off and we tore it down. It was actually very dirty! Inside the hearth there were broken bricks, dirt and garbage (cigarette butts, straws, paper, etc.). We even found an old Pepsi bottle cap. We do like it without the hearth though. It kind of gives us more space in the room. Now we need an idea of how to do our fireplace. We like traditional/modern and as cheap as possible. It's not like we were planning to take it down now it just kind of happened.




















Luckily, I kind of have a before shot from two years ago right after we moved in. I took a picture to show Dionys our new home because he wasn't here when we moved. Here's the after too. Obviously the before looks better but I'm posting the after so you can all help me with some ideas.




















And here's my cuties working hard to clean up all the dirt that was trapped in our hearth. It filled up two garbage cans and we still have more waiting to be thrown away.