Fireplace Remodel Day Twelve and a ½

So today's episode is another compilation of little bits of progress we made since the last post. We wanted to get the dining room side re-opened, so we decided to clean this area up, move the plastic dust barrier back to the edge of the living room, and throw a rug over the unfinished hardwood flooring. We're going to to get the living room completely finished before we come back to this area, so this is probably the last you'll see of the dining room side for a bit.

Quite a change since day #1:

I've been having some problems getting the drywall compound to adhere over the upper section of the wall to the right of the fireplace - this is the bit we didn't replace. I ended up removing my first skim layer, and sanding/scraping all the thick, old paint off this area:

Then I re-skimmed up to what will be the junction with the fireplace tile:

Did some more work on the section of wall I extended.

Finished putting the first skim layer on the lightwell.