Completed fireplace

My fireplace is finally complete and I love it!  You can see how we started with this project here and here.  We chose a white quartz ledgestone to wrap the entire fireplace to give it a soft contemporary look.  It is the only completed project in our house so far, but its a start! 

Here it is…

I really liked the idea of the mantel receding from the view so that the stone and the fireplace can be the focal points.

Just playing around with some artwork to see how it would look with objects on the mantel.

 Well, one project 100% complete!  Off to the next one!

Stay tuned in for the next project!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Our delightful home
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Jennifer Rizzo

Vacation in Punta Cana

I hope everyone had a wonderful week.  My family and friends escaped this frigid winter to warm and sunny Punta Cana in Dominican Republic.  There was thirty of us in our group of friends and we had such a great time!  We stayed at the beautiful Hard Rock Hotel with its spectacular beaches, pools, spas, restaurants and so many amenities.  It was exactly what us New Yorkers needed!

 Amazing tree sculptures!

This one would make a great table base! 

Our kids loved the idea of swimming up to the bar to get themselves a pina colada, virgin of course!

My daughter and her BFF!

Beautiful beach!

Bigger kids had a great time driving the little ones around in their golf cart.

 The boys had a great time playing ball in the pool!

While the boys played in the pool, my daughter and I went on an excursion to hang out with some sea life.  We were kissed by some interesting characters! 

Dancing with a star!

Hitched a ride!

And back to the beautiful pool to relax.

Quite an amazing vacation… Can't wait to do it again!  It was a little disappointing to come back to the hustle and bustle of reality.  But, it was great to get away!

How about you, did you do anything fun this past week?

Thanks for stopping by!


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Home Stories A to Z
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
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So much better with age
The dedicated house

Staying warm on this Valentines Day!

I didn't have anytime to make Valentine's Day decorations this year… So, I'm just going to show you my one and only Valentine's Day project from last year.  Hopefully, I don't use the same one next year!

You can see how I made this sweet Valentine wreath here.

Sending all of you some Valentines Day Love!

Well, its was another snowy stormy day here in New York yesterday and I've had enough with all this bad weather!

This was outside of my window in the morning and I just told my children to roll over and go back to sleep.  There was no way they could make it to school.  They didn't fight me too much!  

To keep warm on these cold blustery days, we have our new fireplace going most of the day.  We are almost complete with the look of the fireplace, this is how we started.  We chose a white quartz ledgestone to surround the entire bump out.  I wanted the fireplace to be without a mantel for a seamless contemporary look.  Then during Christmas time, I thought I wouldn't have a place to hang our stockings.  So I decided that we make a floating mantel and wrap it with the same stone so that there will be a continuous  look.  

Here is the stone we chose, it has a sparkle to it that I love!  

My husband made sure the mantel was built strong and secure to hold up the stone that was going to be wrapped around it.

Here's the fireplace as it starts to get covered in the stone.  

The stone gets a 45 degree angle cut at the corners for a really nice finished edge.

And here is where we are up to as of yesterday… Almost complete!

I can't wait till its finished… Then I can show you the finished product.  Hope to have a better picture than this.

Happy Valentine's Day

Revamped bookcases

Hello there! I hope everyone is staying warm and dry these days, the weather has been brutal here in New York.  Looking outside at the snow looks so beautiful like a winter wonderland, but as soon as I have to go out all that admiration goes out the window.  Slipping and sliding all over the place I am not a very happy camper!  They are saying that a Nor'easter is headed our way by the weekend and if it hits us we'll have over 2 feet of snow!  It sounds like somebody is mad up there!  Okay, enough complaining!  

So here is what's been happening around here lately.  We moved back after 15 months of rebuilding our home after Hurricane Sandy, YAY!! We are so ecstatic to be home which is now better than before, it almost seems like a blessing in disguise.  My children are back in their comfort zone and with their friends, they cannot be happier.  Even though our house is not complete, we didn't care, we just had to be back home.  A house is never complete anyway, there will always be something to do in a home, am I right?

Well, I am setting up my living room and I have already come across my first dilemma.  Last year, I had bought some furniture for my living room and stored it away till we were ready.  I had bought two 8' tall bookcases to flank 6' long cabinet.  Problem was that the shop only had two bookcases that were two different colors, one black and one blue.  I bought them anyway I had figured on painting them white, who does that?  Only me!  This was easier said than done… First, I primed it and then painted four coats of high gloss paint with a light sanding in between each coat, I was really wishing I had a spray gun at this point!

I am pretty happy the way they looked.  So, here is my real dilemma… I had purchased a mirrored cabinet online in white ( I thought) from Home Decorators almost a year ago.  There was a mix up and I had received the cabinet in espresso and it was way to late to exchange it.  So, I have to make it work. 

Here it is now, I really don't like the look of two colors.  It looks like a mishmash!

For now I am going to move the shelves around to find the right spot for them.  I know there is a moral to this story like don't just buy large pieces of furniture haphazardly. 

What do you think? How bad does it look?  Would love to hear your thoughts.

Till next time… 

Thanks for stopping by!