A Fireplace Makeover
7January 12, 2014 by Terry
When we moved into our house five years ago, I knew I didn’t “love” the fireplace in one of the family rooms (there are three believe it or not…why? I’m not sure the point of that…). The house was built in 1978 and the fireplace was originally done in a terracotta/red/brown brick. In fact the entire wall around it as well was brick from floor to ceiling. The previous owners had updated it some by placing drywall over the brick but they used one row of very bland ugly porcelain 12×12 floor tiles to surround it.
This irritated me more with each day I walked by it. It just didn’t feel like a space you wanted to cozy up in and watch movies or read a good book. Well, last summer I took it on as one of my projects I did while my husband was away working….While he was doing this… (forest fires)
As you can see the room was painted in red and then in an olive green and the tiles were just glued to the drywall with masonry glue. They were fairly easy to pop off for the most part, but I did need to replace some of the drywall above the fireplace as some of the glue took with it a few chunks of the drywall.
I had pictured in my mind a fire place with a bit of shine and a lot more class than just floor tiles….so I had picked up these beautiful mosaic type tiles from Home Depot at a decent price…I love how they are white with a marbled grey running through them…they have a look of softness and class to them.
Because I didn’t have this blog last summer or any plans to have one, I do not have detailed pictures of the whole process…sorry!
I used masonry glue to apply the new tile and just a cheap little tile cutter to do the cutting where needed. It was a fairly simple and easy project to do and I love how it turned out! I had to use duct tape to hold some of the pieces in place until the masonry glue set, the tiles wanted to slide down the wall a bit and I wanted that professional look! :0)
This fireplace also didn’t have a mantle when we came. I had two wooden corbels for the longest time that I was actually using as bookends. I had purchased them years earlier and never found the “perfect” place for them until now. So I painted them in a high gloss white and added a shelf, some wainscotting and wow did it ever turn out lovely! What a difference it made in the look and feel of the whole room! I gave the wall a coat of paint in Granite and the side walls of the room got painted in a soft light grey…I love this space now!
We use this room a lot more now, it is more inviting all prettied up.
That sofa is next in line for a makeover…that’s another post!
This room is becoming one of my favorite rooms in this house! It’s amazing how changing one detail in a room can make such a huge difference in the way a room presents itself!
Have a great week!
Take care!
Terry
Please leave a comment! I love to hear your opinions! :0)
Linking up to
Miss Mustard Seed’s Furniture Feature Friday
The Sunday Showcase Party by Stephanie Lynn
Also linking up to Pink when… DIY Sunday Showcase Party
Wow what a great transformation – and am v impressed that you did it yourself. Love the pearlescent tiles. Might have to steal that idea xx
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Its like you read my mind! You appear to know so much about this,
like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you could do with a few pics to drive the message home a little bit, but other than that,
this is great blog. A fantastic read. I’ll certainly be back.
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Thanks for the visit and the advice! Hope you visit again!
Smiles!
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it up all the time.
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Do you mind if I quote a couple of your articles as long as I
provide credit and sources back to your site? My blog is in the exact
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I would be happy to share so long as you give me credit for the the info etc. Thank you for asking first, I respect that a lot :0)
Smiles!
Terry
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[…] the poor quality) I had just made over the fireplace by building a mantel and hanging new tile. (You can see that very early post here … my how I’ve grown since then!) I think that post also shows yet another different […]
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