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/ Home Improvement, Our Home Before & Afters

Fireplace Makeover, Start To Finish

This post has been so long coming! At the suggestion of one of my lovely readers ages ago, I rounded up all the posts about our fireplace renovation and put them together in one place as a reference guide.

If you feel like you’re never going to get through all the projects your house needs, take heart. I started this in November 2015 and finished it….last week! 

All set with fireplace makeovers? Check out the pea stone patio and fire pit build here, or perhaps you’d enjoy one of these furniture flips!

 

If you’re looking to update your fireplace, here are all the steps I took to giving our outdated fireplace and built-ins a much needed makeover.

DEMOLITION AND RECONSTRUCTION

PART 1 and PART 2

We started with a peach painted brick fireplace and cabinets on either side. While we loved having built-ins, the mantle was weirdly high and objects on those shelves always felt out of balance.

An 80s era fireplace gets a dramatic makeover

We also decided to mount our TV over the mantle (not my favorite choice design-wise, but it was really the best option for this room). You can see how we wired the TV behind a new upper mantle and relocated an outlet in PART 2 of the reconstruction posts.

I installed the upper mantle so that it would extend out from the bookcases a bit and give this wall some definition. The crown moulding I added really accentuates this and is a little detail I love.

PREP, PRIMING & PAINTING

Every nook and cranny of the newly rebuilt surround, built-ins and trim got caulked, putty-filled, sanded and painted after tarping off the rest of the room. Using a paint sprayer required a lot of prep, but made the project SO much quicker and easier than brushing and rolling on the paint, and the finish is really smooth and beautiful.

The fireplace surround and bookcase paint color is Benjamin Moore White Dove OC-17 in semi-gloss.

I also painted the bookcase backs with Benjamin Moore Gentleman’s Gray 2062-20 (leftover from our master bedroom and also used on the coastal bathroom vanity).

You may notice that one of the boxes of the bookcase is bigger than the others; that’s the result of removing the old mantle. The shelves are built into the sides of the bookcase and are not removable without cutting them out with a saw, a task I decided wasn’t worth making the shelves all uniform!

TILING THE SURROUND

I tiled right over the existing brick surround with these marble tiles and this completely transformed the look of our fireplace! Love at first site!!

How to tile over a brick fireplace surround

 

TILING THE HEARTH

We were planning to have a thick slab of slate or honed granite cut, but in the end I went with my heart and tiled over the brick hearth with this herringbone marble, and created a border with marble threshold. I also framed and trimmed out the base of the hearth.

I had to install cement backer board to even out the surface of the existing hearth, but if your hearth is level you can go right over brick with tile adhesive.

 

SEALING THE MARBLE

This is a really important step when using marble tile around a fireplace or near a cooktop! I had a bit of a trial and error experience my first time around – you can read about what I did wrong and the best product to use to seal marble tile in this post.

A raised brick fireplace hearth is updated with marble herringbone tiled and a marble threshold used as a border.

An outdated fireplace is given a facelift with marble tiling on the hearth and surround.

 

PAINTING THE INTERIOR OF THE FIREPLACE BOX

Our fireplace is wood burning, and we use it all the time from October through April, so I did a lot of reading about the best practices of cleaning a fireplace box. Read all about what parts of the fireplace box to paint and what to avoid.

 

ADDING CABINET DOORS

We liked the bookcases open from floor to ceiling, but eventually I grew super weary of having to keep all those shelves styled and pretty – plus what house couldn’t use a bit more storage space?

I bought these MDF cabinet doors online, made to my exact specifications (not that expensive!), primed and painted them, and……

voila! The fireplace reno is finito!  Only took me two years and six months to complete 🙂

You can read about adding the cabinet doors in this post.

Can we talk about this glorious hidden storage?!! I’m actually looking forward to cleaning out junk drawers, organizing random household things and taking advantage of this newfound space this summer!

And the pretty new pulls don’t kill me either!

 

One last look at the before and after!

An 80s era fireplace gets a dramatic makeover

 

 

See the whole family room makeover reveal here!

 

SOURCE LIST

Rectangular marble tiles on surround

Herringbone marble tile on hearth

Marble sealer

Firebox high-heat paint

Cabinet doors

Concealed hinges

Cabinet pulls

Find all the materials used for the various projects within each post I linked to.

 

If you have any questions I haven’t covered just let me know!

Wishing you a wonderful day!

 

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/ Uncategorized

Where To Find Everything From Our Family Room Makeover

Thank you so much for all your kind comments and messages about our One Room Challenge family room makeover!

If you’re looking for a specific item, you’ll find the sources for almost everything in this room here, and for one of a kind items or products that are no longer available I tried to find a similar recommendation for you. If you don’t find what you’re looking for shoot me an email and I’ll point you in the right direction!I’ll be writing a separate post about the moulding and art if you’re looking for more details on those projects. I decided to add a bit more trim to our built-ins before installing the cabinet doors, so stay tuned for that reveal in the near future!

Sofa

Rug | Rug pad

Coffee table – no longer available | similar x-base with a pretty top

Sconces – they are plug-ins but I had them hardwired with a dimmer switch installed

Art – framed canvas print from Homegoods that I painted over

Blue pillow on sofa

Cream pillow on sofa | similar

White pillow on sofa | 20″ down pillow insert

Macrame pillow – Homegoods | similar

Cream faux fur blanket on sofa

Woven tray – Homegoods | similar

Chairs

Linen curtains – I double them up for fullness

Curtain rods with glass ball finials | similar

Textured blue pillows

White cotton throw blankets

Iron and glass table between chairs | similar | the look for less

Glass lamp 

Lampshade

Footstool – Homegoods

Abstract art – Amira Rahim

White frame with mat

Blue & white ginger jars – Homegoods | similar

Glass jar with rope handle on floor – Homegoods | similar

Mirrors on either side of built-ins | similar

Plant basket

Plant – peace lily

Settee

Metal and wood tables next to settee – Marshalls

White lamps next to settee – thrifted and spraypainted

Lampshades

White frames with mats on wall behind settee

Large basket in corner – Marshalls

PAINT

Wall color:  Benjamin Moore Simply White

Trim (fireplace surround, battens, crown moulding, etc.):  Benjamin Moore White Dove

Blue bookcase backs:  Benjamin Moore Gentleman’s Gray lightened a bit with white paint

FIREPLACE MAKEOVER

For more information about the fireplace makeover check out these posts:

Tiling Over The Brick Fireplace Surround

Adding Trim & Tiling Over The Brick Hearth

Sealing Marble Tile

How To Paint The Interior Of A Working Fireplace

SHOP THE ACCESSORIES

THANK YOU for following along with this room makeover! For another great before and after check out how this coastal bathroom came out!

A light and coastal design plan for a beige and boring bathroom.

 

/ Our Home Before & Afters

Family Room Makeover | One Room Challenge Reveal!

I’m proud to be partnering with Raymour & Flanigan for the One Room Challenge and share my honest opinion and experience with you!

 

 

The day has finally come my friends! There is nothing quite like the six week One Room Challenge to finally get done what you’ve been dreaming of doing to your home. I can’t tell you how happy I am to pull this room together and make it a space we really love to be in and  am beyond thrilled to partner with Raymour & Flanigan on this makeover!

If you’re new here, a quick recap from week one…

After living in two new, spacious and perfectly lovely houses when our kids were small, we decided to downsize when our oldest was eleven so that we could do less mortgage paying and more living before our munchkins grew up. I desperately wanted a fixer upper that we could make our own through the years – I can’t tell you how many houses on the market I rejected because they were “too nice”, welcome to Mark’s world! – and somehow managed to talk him into a basic 80s-era house with good bones but in need of a lot of updating. It’s been a slow and steady crawl versus a sprint, but we’re getting there one project at a time!

Our family room makeover

I’ve worked on our family room before, and it wasn’t in bad shape, but our furniture has seen three kids grow through the years and weathered our old sweet but slobbery Saint Bernard. The couch frame cracked when someone (“wasn’t me!!!”) catapulted onto it and the DIY fix I attempted wasn’t working too well. I also reupholstered two big club chairs myself and while I gave it my best shot, let’s just say it turns out reupholstering might not be my calling in life. We got our money’s worth from the furniture and art in this room and it was majorly time for an upgrade!!

Here’s what this room looked like when we moved here eight years ago….

When we bought our home the interior was covered in peach paint.

….and most recently I had given the fireplace a facelift and painted the room white, but everything was starting to look and feel tired in here (and I was so exhausted from looking at the same art for 20 years that one day I just took it down and didn’t put anything back up…for months 🙂 ).

 

Overall the color palette of our family room has stayed the same, but wow!! It’s amazing how  better fitting furniture, new moulding and some restyling can make a space feel! Here it is after six weeks of the ORC……

Another recent before……

….and after.

 

If you’ve followed along on this room makeover you know I was beside myself to find the very sofa I had been dreaming of for this space at Raymour & Flanigan! I was all set to go with a neutral sofa when last minute I checked online and discovered this beauty! Oh I love her!! She is everything I hoped she would be, long, lean, durable, and oh so comfortable!

This is the Griffon sofa in navy chenille, so incredibly soft, with plenty of room to stretch out!!

The back is low, and my family was concerned it wasn’t going to be comfortable, but it’s the perfect canvas for comfy throw pillows.

This room is all about subtle texture, which gives a monochromatic color palette a little interest. Velvet, linen, macrame, natural materials, nubby textures, all so good together.

The rug is an ivory braided jute that has tons of color variations and is reversible. Jute is hard wearing and the braided aspect means it won’t show traffic patterns like a boucle looped jute rug does.

I took a poll about sconces and these sunbursts were hands down the favorite!! The only part of this room makeover I did not DIY was installing electrical boxes on this wall and having these  plug in lights hardwired to a dimmer switch.

I mentioned in a previous post that one of my big setbacks was realizing a canvas print I had custom ordered (read:  non-returnable!) was too small for this wall, so I had to scramble to come up with a plan B!

The painting was inspired by this photo I took on our dream trip to Hawaii with our kids a few years ago (you can find the tutorial for a wood mounted photo here!) I’ll share more about this project next week.

I really love to decorate our house with things that are meaningful and remind us of beautiful places we’ve been blessed to see in this world!

I also obviously have a love of coastal, blue and white (going all the way back to the blue and white rose wallpaper my mom let me pick out when I was a kid!), lots of natural elements and a big dose of live green plants. To me this calm and neutral background counterbalances all the CRAZY that is real life 🙂 – and also lends itself to changing things up easily throughout the year!

In the front of the room I have two slipcovered Willowick chairs that are big and insanely cozy for reading a book or watching TV. I got these specifically because this is our family room and the name of the game in here is to make this room a casual, comfortable space that everyone will gravitate to!

This is my new favorite corner in the mornings when the sun streams in!

I like that the arm is similar to the sofa arm but the skirt breaks up all the exposed legs in the room.

These fringed cotton throws are lightweight and perfect for summer!

The view from the foyer is much improved (do you spy the one thing that’s missing?)

The abstract art in the bookcase is by Amira Rahim, an amazing artist whose colorful, joyful work I first saw on Instagram. This piece could not be more perfect for my room!

So here we are at the missing piece – the cabinet doors on the bookcases next to the fireplace! They are all ready to be installed, but I bought the wrong hinges, and ran out of time to install them with the correct ones. I’ll update this post today once they are on – this is seriously one of my favorite parts of the room makeover!

While the marble tile on the surround has lots of the same hues as the rug, the herringbone tile on the hearth is slightly more grey, but I like texture and variation of neutral tones.

If you’re interested in doing your fireplace over, read about how I tiled over our brick surround and raised brick hearth.

On the windows I stayed with my favorite white linen curtains but doubled them up for fullness,  using two panels on one side of each window to frame out the chairs.

I love how unlined linen filters the natural light.

Across from the windows is the half wall that separates the family room from the entrance from our garage. I have to install one last piece of crown up there,

The Emelio Settee is so perfect on this wall!! The entrance into the room is on an angle and with the long sofa, I needed something that wasn’t bulky.

I had seen this cute little armless loveseat in a Lonny photo and thought it was so charming!

Besides replacing the furniture, rug and art, and adding the doors to the built in bookcases, the other major component to this room makeover was giving this space some character with mouldings.

I replaced the standard old baseboards with 5″ board with cove moulding, added full wall battens around the room, and topped it all off with crown moulding.

I had already installed crown around the top of the built-ins and fireplace when I did this all over a couple years ago, and this time around I added it to the rest of the room.

This pilaster (a column attached to the wall) mimics the column of the half wall and also separates the family room from the garage entrance; a natural transition to ending the full wall battens.

Excuse these grainy hallway photos – the light from the bathroom and the slider make this a tricky area to photograph! – but here you can see a couple of the pictures from our family travels that I framed for last year’s One Room Challenge bathroom makeover. I traded them with the nautical maps and love the bit of color on this wall!

The view when you walk in from the garage.

Thank you so much for following along on this six week adventure with me!! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the comments and feedback through this challenge, and it was so fun to share the process with you!

Special thanks to Linda Weinstein, creator and organizer of the One Room Challenge with media partner House Beautiful, who does so much to organize this bi-annual event, communicate with participants and help us all to keep the process running smoothly!

MY ONE ROOM CHALLENGE SPONSOR

Raymour & Flanigan has been such a champion of Bloggers Heart Habitat and I am truly grateful and proud to partner with a company that is so incredibly supportive of the local community. I LOVE their products and great price points – there is something for everyone in their stores as evidenced by my navy chesterfield dream come true! – and the entire staff I’ve had the pleasure of working with from sales to customer service to delivery has been fantastic. I can’t recommend this company enough! Thank you Raymour & Flanigan!

Also, a huge shout out to EMCO Electric who installed my family room lights and a myriad of other electrical projects in this outdated 80s abode. They are incredibly responsive, honest, tidy and are pros! Check out their website or find them on Facebook if you’re in the metrowest Boston area.

 

You can find the sources for everything in this room right here!

 

Cheers to all my ORC comrades who finished rooms this round – we made it to the end of this marathon! Congrats to all!

 

Check out all the room reveals here, there are so many amazing spaces and talented people out there! Have a great weekend ahead and thanks again for your support and kindness!

/ Home Improvement

Painting The Interior Of A Fireplace

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It’s the end of October and we’ve already had a few fires this year, and many more ahead. With my oldest, Peter, going off to college next year I am trying not to get all sentimental on Sunday afternoons, but oh do I love having everyone home watching football or a movie, our three and often their friends sprawled out on the floor and couch in front of the fire in our little family room. I LOVE IT.

A fire makes the house feel so cozy, and now that we did the fireplace over we are always in this room in the cold weather. The herringbone tiles are my favorite when they glimmer and dance in the firelight.

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After tiling the hearth and surround and painting all the new moulding, it was time to clean up the old firebox and I thought I’d share with you a couple thoughts about this project.

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This post may contain affiliate links for your convenience.  Read my full disclosure policy here.

 

ONE | Clean the firebox thoroughly. Remove grate. Remove ash with a fireplace shovel and broom. Scrape any ash on the walls of the firebox, vacuum and then use damp old rags to wipe down the interior of the box.

TWO | Use high heat paint in a flat finish. It can withstand temperatures up to 1200 degrees farenheit. I like to use a cheap nylon bristle paint brush that I can toss when done with the oil paint.

THREE | If you actually use your fireplace like we do, don’t paint where the flames come in direct contact with the firebox. The back of our fireplace was black from fires already, so I painted up to that area. I did not paint the backplate or grate, just the firebrick on the firebox walls. While the high heat paint could physically withstand the heat, I wanted to reduce the risk of the toxins released into the air.

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Painting the interior black definitely freshes it up, but with a wood burning fireplace you have to accept that the floor of the firebox is going to get and stay sooty for the season. I clean the ashes out after every second or third fire but the soot remains all fall and winter.

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I’ve had a few questions about what I used on the inside edge of the fireplace box that is white. It’s paint!

Originally I tiled the two interior brick sides that meet the marble surround, but they didn’t look right, so I removed the tiles and scraped off the mortar. Eventually I just painted these two edges with regular trim paint, thinking that I’d have to find a long-term solution as the paint would surely yellow from smoke, but actually it is still looking quite white and clean. I like how the paint doesn’t really call any attention to itself, and since it’s not in contact with the heat I’m not worried about it burning off toxins.

 

Another side note for those of you with wood burning fireplaces – our fireplace grate. It’s amazing! When we first moved in here we had a terrible problem with smoke coming into the room, despite have the chimney cleaned. The front of the fireplace would get covered in smoke stains by winter’s end.

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Mark did some research and found a fireplace grate called the Grate Wall Of Fire.

grate-wall-of-fire

It supposedly eliminated smoke coming into a room by guiding the smoke towards the chimney. Mark read tons of reviews and decided to try it, along with a steel backplate that makes a fire burn more efficiently and throws more heat. The two pieces together were kind of a pricey endeavor and I must admit I was skeptical about this purchase.

Well, long story short, we love them. We almost never have a smoke issue in the room, and we burn less wood. Mark should be a Grate Wall Of Fire salesman in his free time because he tells everyone about it :). Since we bought ours, our neighbor bought a set for himself AND his parents, and our family members all bought the Grate Wall Of Fire too!

fireplace-www-shineyourlightblog-com-720x480

I’ve been looking for a fireplace screen that won’t cover up my pretty tile but it’s proving really difficult to find one that’s just right, so we might have to go the custom route. I’ll keep you posted on that search. Also, would you hate me if I paint over those blue bookcase backs? I think I’m over them. Already. 🙂

Hope you’re having a great week, friends!

 

If you’re looking for the scoop on the fireplace remodel, check out these posts:

Tiling The Surround and Tiling The Hearth

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/ Home Improvement, Popular Posts

How To Tile Over A Brick Fireplace Surround

Hey friends! I’m finally back with another edition of our fireplace makeover.

You may recall it started out in all sorts of orangey-oak-and-painted-peach glory when we first bought our 80s-era house and I immediately painted it all white. Eventually the hearth ended up black because we use the fireplace all the time and the white hearth paint got so beat up. A painted hearth for a fireplace that is used frequently is just NOT a good idea! The black hearth functioned better but since it is raised, it was such an eyesore and I constantly thought about sledgehammering the whole thing.Our fireplace before the makeover

While I was daydreaming about restyling the fireplace, Mark was dreaming of hanging the tv here. We have 2 windows and 3 doorways into this room and no matter where we put the tv it was awkward. Long story short, we both agreed the best place for it was on the fireplace wall (I’ll go into more detail about figuring out if a fireplace is a viable option for a tv, and how we hung ours, in a later post.)  On a whim right before we hosted Thanksgiving, we decided to rip out the mantle, and thus ensued the HUGE fireplace makeover project that spanned across the entire holiday season! We’re awesome planners like that! Despite the fact that our house was torn apart for weeks on end and there was a lot of grunt labor involved, this project really changed the feel of our family room and we are so glad we tackled it!!

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Today I wanted to fill you in on tiling over the existing brick surround and next week I’ll talk about the boxed and tiled hearth – my favorite parts of the project!

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I have only tiled once before, with my brother many years ago, and then I was more the assistant and the person who went to pick up subs while he did all the actual work. 🙂  This time I did it all myself, with the advice of some experts, so I wanted to share my experience in case you are thinking about tackling something like this for the first time too.

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. Read my full disclosure policy here.

 

CHOOSING THE MATERIAL

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Mark and I had decided that since we were DIYing the demo and carpentry parts of this project, we would invest in something we really loved for the surround and hearth. I visited stone yards and countertop companies and priced out granite, soapstone and Vermont slate slabs, and saw some gorgeous options, but I kept thinking about our future kitchen renovation and the materials I want to use in there. The family room is right off the kitchen and the materials in the two rooms need to live harmoniously with each other. When I looked at my kitchen boards on Pinterest it was crazy how many kitchens I had pinned that had marble tile. So I took a peek at marble tile just for fun, and once  I brought it home and saw it with the fireplace I was head over heels!!

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I went with these 2″x4″ Venatino marble tiles. They come on mesh sheets that are about 10″x12″. There is such a HUGE color variation even in the same marble family. The first sheet of tile I bought was exactly what I wanted – a creamy white with grey and beige veining and swooshes. When I went back to the store to get more I discovered that most of the stock was VERY grey, so I took down every single sheet off the shelves (probably 50 or so, it was a good upper-body workout!) and laid them out in the aisle, making a “keep” pile as I went along. I estimated that I needed seven sheets, with an extra just in case, and I did end up using all 8.

After seeing how varied the marble can be, if you are using marble I would strongly suggest that you pick it out yourself as opposed to buying it online!

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This was the keep pile that I kept adding and deleting from as I found better options.

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You will probably notice that some of my photos present the tiles as being really grey, and other times they almost look white. The lighting and time of day has a lot to do with that, but in real life the surround as a whole reads mostly creamy white with grey and beige. We love the color variations and overall composition that we ended up with.

 

INSTALLING THE TILE

There are so many great tutorials online for step-by-step tile installation that I’m not going to recreate the wheel;  this one at Thrifty Decor Chick was super helpful, particularly Sarah’s recommendation to buy premixed adhesive for a small job like this instead of mixing together Thinset.

I installed the tile after we had the base of our surround done, but before the final trim. Before I installed the tile I used chalk to mark the surround measurements on my kitchen floor, and then cut up the mesh sheets to fit the tiles together like a puzzle. A few of the sheets had really dark tiles that I cut out, or too much white in one area, but overall I tried to keep the tiles on the sheets so that it would be easier to place them.

Fireplace Makeover Tiling Over Brick | www.shineyourlightblog.com

I rented a wet saw for the tiles that needed to be cut. I had never used a wet saw before and was freaked out! but I regularly use a compound miter saw and a jigsaw, I drive a car, and I am raising kids 🙂 , and if I can do those things LIKE A BOSS then I figured a wet saw would not be that big of a deal – and it wasn’t!!! Mark had used one before, so he showed me how to push the tile through slowly and make sure that water was always running onto it.

[Looking back on this project a few years and tile projects later, I wish I had just bought an inexpensive wet saw for my first project – it would have been way more cost effective than renting one repeatedly. After doing this surround, tiling the hearth, and tiling a bathroom floor I finally bought this wet saw to tile my kitchen backsplash and it’s great for small jobs like these.]

Marble is pretty soft and is known for chipping, but I didn’t encounter a big problem with that.

I applied just enough adhesive to install one sheet at a time, and since the tiles were on the mesh they were already spaced evenly. If I replaced a tile on a sheet because it was too light or dark, I would cut the mesh around it with a utility blade, install the sheet, then “butter” a replacement tile and wiggle it into place. (See how grey the tiles look in this light??? Crazy.)
Fireplace Makeover Grouting The Tile

I let the tile set for a couple of days while I worked on the hearth, and then I grouted the surround with premixed unsanded white grout. Overall I think it came out great but if I could do one thing over again it would be to use spacers even though the tiles were on the mesh sheets. Some of my grout lines are a teeny bit wider than others, not really noticeable unless you study them, but as the installer I’m aware and annoyed with myself. I bought the wrong spaces but now I know I could have used pennies. The fact that the grout is similar in color to the tile disguises the grout lines a little but if you are using a contrasting grout I would suggest the spacers.

Fireplace Makeover Nonsanded White Grouted Tile

I love the variations in the colors and how it adds some texture to the room without taking over!

The surround tile and supplies cost around $120 (tile, adhesive, grout and tools) which in comparison to the other options we were looking at is very inexpensive, and I think it’s a lot of bang for the buck!

Here’s one more way back-before and after…….

Shine Your Light Blog Fireplace Makeover

Next up on these fireplace makeover chronicles I’ll show you how I tiled over the ugly brick hearth, sealing all this marble goodness to prevent smoke discoloration, and painting the interior of the fireplace box.

Visit this post for the makeover of the fireplace and built-ins from start to finish! 

Wishing you a wonderful weekend lovelies!

/ Home Improvement, Uncategorized

The Reconstruction Of Our Fireplace & Built-Ins

fireplace files

The week before Thanksgiving we jumped into a huge project on a whim, a project that we’ve been thinking about since the first day we moved here – changing up the design of our fireplace. I’ve done most of the interior projects around here myself, but even with my Stubborn Irish-meets-Girl Power attitude I knew I would need some help on this one. Mark and I had done a TON of research on this remodel for the past 5 years and were feeling pretty confident about doing it ourselves, but held off because of the time commitment – exactly when is a good time to rip apart your family room?? Um – the week before you host Thanksgiving?? It was probably not the best timing, but when I casually mentioned to Mark that I’d love to do the fireplace project next, he got all fired up and took a sledgehammer to our mantel, and it was GAME ON!

In the middle of December I shared an overview of the process, but there were so many parts to this remodel that I decided to break it down and share bits and pieces over the next few weeks for those of you who are thinking about a project like this in your own home.

These posts I’ll be sharing about our fireplace remodel are for informational purposes only. Please read my Disclosure and Policies and exercise caution when undertaking DIY home improvement projects. Eye and ear protection are highly recommended.

The quick scoop on where the fireplace started when we first moved in – oak cabinets and the famous peach paint. I primed and painted this along with all the orange trim in the house.

fireplace before

(The peach paint was EVERYWHERE……it was all hands on deck that summer!)043

The paint did wonders……IMG_2169

but a few issues remained: the mantle was weirdly high, the cubbies on the top of the cabinets were awkward, and between two entrances into this room and two windows, there was no place for the TV. We made the decision to mount the TV over the fireplace after doing a LOT of research on the subject, and I’ll dedicate a post to that subject later for those of you considering this.

Our plan was to remove the existing mantle, modify the height of the cabinet doors, and change up the overall style while we were at it. The first thing we did was rip out the mantle with a crowbar, a sledgehammer and a lot of grunt labor.

We also knocked out the brick corbels that were under the mantle by placing a chisel against the brick and hitting it with a hammer. The brick breaks apart in 50 million tiny pieces so it’s a good idea to put drop cloths around the work area and definitely wear eye protection if you are doing something like this.

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The demo alone took a couple of evenings. After the demo was complete we started reconstructing the fireplace surround, hearth and uppermantle (that is actually a word!). This is where all my Pinterest research and dreams of how we could transform our fireplace came to life, so very exciting!!!! Here’s the scoop on the reconstruction phase.

THE MANTLE & SURROUND
The first step to building out a new surround, mantle and uppermantle was to install furring strips to the brick. We did this using Liquid Nails and a powder actuated fastener that drives nails through the wood into the brick, and provides a really secure base on which to build.
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powder actuated tool

The tool is held up against the furring strip and hit with a hammer, and one of these nails is shot into the brick.powder actuated nailIMG_1803

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After the furring strips were installed into the brick we added plywood to the surround. This is where we made our one BIG mistake of the whole project – even though we knew better, we used a piece of regular plywood we had in our garage for the surround that was not PAINT-GRADE plywood (like poplar, birch, or maple). Cheap plywood has a bit of texture and we thought we could hide it with priming and painting, but after it was all done, the texture is still apparent, so if you are building a fireplace surround I strongly recommend using a very smooth, high quality plywood!   FullSizeRender-1

Note that the plywood does not come all the way to the edge of the fireplace box. In Massachusetts, fire code requires at least 6″ of brick or a non-flammable surface around the firebox – make sure to check your state’s fire code before starting a project like this. We also left room for resurfacing the hearth so the plywood does not come all the way down to the brick.

After we had the surround base installed, we started boxing out the mantle. This photo below shows the layers of furring strip, plywood, and then a 2×4.

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Off of the 2×4 we built a box to give the mantle some visual weight, and cut down the old oak mantle boards to fit on top, layering 2 boards to create a nice thick top. All these pieces were attached with both Liquid Nails and a pneumatic nail gun, and we checked to make sure it was all level continuously.

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Then we trimmed the edges of the mantle for a seamless look.

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After we constructed the surround and mantle, we decided to added a piece of crown moulding to the front of the box. Since the top of the mantle was already attached, we couldn’t wrap the crown around the sides because it would have extended beyond the top. Instead we placed it just on the front and capped the ends with a return piece like I did on the chair rail on our built in bookcases. I know not everyone would choose to do this; it’s probably considered WRONG in the world of fine carpentry, but what the hey! The crown made a world of difference in the end result and we LOVE it – sometimes you have to fly by the seat of your pants with your DIYing! Here is the mantle all finished – I’m so happy with how it turned out!

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THE UPPERMANTLE

After the mantle was done we went through a similar process with the top of the mantle. The old mantle had an outlet in it, so we turned off the power when we demoed, took the outlet box and put it aside on one of the bookcases. Then when we got to this stage of reconstruction, we built it into the upper mantle so that it would be hidden by the tv (somehow I didn’t get a picture of this.)  Before installing the furring strips to the brick, I made a route to run the cable wire through (the old fashioned way, with a chisel and hammer). After we had attached the furring we realized we needed to add another route for the HDMI cable so I chiseled out another channel on the front. These cables were plugged into the outlet, then run over to, and down through, the bookcase on the side where they meet up with the cable box. More on that later!FIREPLACE1We cut down plywood to attach to the furring strips over the brick, and drilled a hole large enough for the cable for the tv to be pulled through, then we attached the plywood to the furring strips to create the uppermantle.
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After we installed this wood base to the upper and lower parts of the fireplace, I tiled the surround before moving on to the finish carpentry.

Once the tile surround was done, I trimmed out both the surround and the uppermantle. To achieve inset boxes in the middle areas (both at the very top of the uppermantle, and right under the mantle, I used a thinner trim than the sides; it’s very subtle but gives a little more detail to the design. The trim hides all the seams on the bottom and really brings some depth to the fireplace.

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After adding the trim I caulked all the seams, filled the nail holes and attempted to smooth out the plywood for days on end. Prepping to paint takes so much time but is so worth it in the end!! I sanded and primed all the new wood. Homeright was gracious enough to send me a Finish Max sprayer, so I taped off the fireplace box and taped drop cloths all around the area – the walls and floor – then sprayed the new surround, mantle, uppermantle and bookcases with a few light coats to achieve a really nice smooth finish. The sprayer is amazing at getting into all the nooks and crannies of the trim and bookcases!

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That’s the scoop on the demolition and reconstruction of the fireplace. There is so much more to this project – it was a ton of work but truly one of my favorite home improvement DIYs to date! Look for these upcoming posts that break down the whole process from start to finish!

Mounting the TV

Modifying the bookcases

Tiling the surround

Tiling the hearth, and

Sealing the tile

I’ll be back next week with another edition of the fireplace files!