Again, with that ridiculous space

We should probably be incredibly grateful for all the builders who build houses and leave big, empty spaces on either side of all those fireplaces. Because that space makes people crazy, and Jim gets to fix it by adding useful shelves and whatnot. Here's a really nice set he did for some lovely friends of ours:

So purty.

This photograph is beautiful for two reasons: First, of course, because it features these gorgeous shelves Jim built and stained to exactly match the existing fireplace. Second, because one of our lovely friends who lives here is a genius photographer who takes all my favorite pictures ever in life. So this looks like the real deal because it is.

Here are pictures Jim took of the project in process. (Jim is not a photographer, y'all.)

Before. No. This will never do.

During. And now we're getting somewhere.

Jim has done this to fireplace spaces before, and he will probably do it again, because people just keep on building fireplaces and leaving these spaces around them. Here's another post about that ridiculous space around fireplaces, just in case the topic is of special interest to you.