"Yes, I can paint that" and other random catch-ups.

Just a few tiny updates around the Wisely house these days-- but worth a note regardless! (I apologize for some of these silly posts; I get nostalgic and like to look back on all the small projects we do around here!) First off-- In an attempt to pretty up our corner-o-cords(before and after):

It's a bit of a cover up; (obviously) but more ideas on the way. Anybody have any tips on cord-corralling? And also, after finally getting creeped out by how ugly the inside of our fireplace is (having the TV above the fireplace makes you stare at it a bit more than your average fixture), I attempted to clean out our fireplace. After trying nearly every product/internet trip I could, I ended up with this lovely situation:

Beautiful, right? Not so much. The fireplace guy that came out to fix our damper told us we could print our nasty bricks with barbecue paint, which we did. Definitely an improvement!

Better for now! However I still have some touch ups to do until we officially start building our new mantle... I'm also considering painting the old terra cotta tiles as a temporary fix; the lovely and talented folks at Young House Love found it to be a nice update, so I figured why not! I'm not particularly attached to terra cotta. I also kind of like the way it lightens up the floor a bit:

(Oh look! Christmas! Yay!) Fancy. This pic also makes me consider axing the tile-around-the-fireplace-before-mantle idea; I kind of like the texture. We'll see how it goes!