The living room is coming along nicely and is basically done minus a new chair, some canvas artwork, and a little accessorizing.  Here's a quick image of the updated fireplace brick and mantel.  We were thinking about replacing the brick and going with something a little more modern but decided to just paint it and the wall it's on a medium warm taupe-gray, and we had the mantle sanded and stained darker.  I love the 50" canvas image from our honeymoon stop in Venice, but may need to either make it a black and white or change the print to another image that doesn't have such a bold orangish color in it.  Your thoughts?  

And while out at Pier 1 the other day, we stumbled on this little button pillow gem on the clearance rack.  We thought it was fun and had the hard to find color combination (reds, warm gray, sand, slate and steel blue, etc.) we're trying to use to tie the photography gallery room to the adjacent updated living room.  I think it looks pretty fun in the red leather chairs in the gallery room.

I hope to post new kitchen images soon when we get the appliances in and the tile backsplash installed.  The tile work is worthy of an entire post of it's own considering we're going on day 4 of a tile job that was quoted as only taking a day to complete.  In fact, the words backsplash, tile & kitchen and the phrase of the week, "Uhhh, sir, we've got a little problem" have become my new hot buttons.  Say any of of them, and I'm likely to stuff your ears with grout.