Two fireplaces in February!!!

I had this post ready for 2 weeks but had some trouble uploading the photos from work, so it had to wait until I had some uninterrupted time at home with my laptop...  Jack was sick yesterday; he even stayed home from work.  (You KNOW he had to be feeling not-so-good!  In fact, he's taking a nap now; we're staying in today so he can get his strength back.)

After spending a few weekends doing the bedroom fireplace, it took hubby ONE.DAY to put up the stacked stone on the sitting room fireplace.

I know you're all thinking he's incredible, and he is, but we were working with an advantage:  the gas fireplaces were installed by the fireplace people when we put on the addition, so all he had to do regarding prep work was remove sheetrock, add tileboard, mix mastic, and slap those tiles up there!  The tiles were 4-5 stones high, and 24" long, so that made it a LOT easier.  Also, FYI, we bought the bedroom rock 2 years ago but just got to the project this month; they were even blocks, all rectangular.  The sitting room fireplace stone was ordered a couple of weeks ago, picked up on the Friday of our long weekend, and they've improved the design (yes, it's a different company, too):  they had interlocking ends, about 2" long on each 24" tile, so you see far fewer "seams" where we had to cut and modify to fill in spaces.

I am not the person to describe this in technical detail, so I hope that was enough of an explanation that you could figure it out!!!  Suffice it to say, I think these new fireplace surrounds add a LOT of oomph to those two rooms!!!

This is the one in our bedroom.  It's not a deep mantle; neither of them is.  I'm going to lean framed photos and/or a mirror against it, since hanging photos on a rock wall would mean damaging the rock...

This is the one on the other side, in the sitting room.  The fireplace is see-through and throws heat on both sides.  I'll put framed pictures on this side, too, most probably the focal one will be the painting we had done in Vegas by one of those street painters.  You can click on this link to see what I'm talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzi_BGnY0Vc  We had one done in greens and browns, trees and a lake, to remind us of our lake house...  I'll take a photo of it and post it when I can...