Fireplace Makeover

About a year and a half ago we bought our first home. It is an older home and needed some updating. We started out gung-ho painting the whole upstairs, ripping up all the carpet, and some of the flooring in the kitchen. After all of that, the fireplace was next on the list. 

                                    

I had an idea of what I wanted but it lacked details. I looked at some images of fireplaces online and Mandi emailed me some links to blogs that she liked. From the links I found the details I needed. The inspiration came from Theletteredcottage. Her blog has awesome step by step instructions of their fireplace makeover. Now that I had an example it was time to set the makeover in motion and get my husband for assistance (aka tell him what I wanted and set him to work). 

First we took out the front glass cover and the fake logs.  

Then I painted the inside of the fireplace. 

Then my husband started the design process. We used flat wood boards for the backing and 1 x 2's to make the squares. We used liquid nails for the backing boards and a nail gun to attach the boards for the squares.  

Next, we put a 1 x 12 all the way across to make the top. Then we bought a 6 ft piece of crown molding and used that as our mantle section above the actual fireplace. We also used a small piece of decorative trim to cover the outside edge of the top board.Then we added book shelves to each side.

 The bottom bench part of the fireplace was the trickiest. We had to encase the old brick and stone step. So we ended up cutting strips of wood and doing a kind of paneling pattern. 

This is the finished product. Turns out that designing as we went worked best for us. We really enjoy it. It makes our front room more cozy, and yes that is a plant in my fireplace. Even though it turned out great, there are some things we would do differently. 

Things we would do differently...

• Caulk before we painted.
• Apply some type of sealant or finish at the very end. 
• Use fire retardant paint when painting the inside of the fireplace. 

-Jackie

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