DIY Fireplace Makeover

Hello All! First I’d like to say Thank You for visiting my blog. This is my very first post. I will continue to post projects as I create them, so if you like what you see please check back regularly.

Here we go.

We recently move into our home, which we love, but the fireplace was an eye sore. Here you can see what it looked like when we first arrived.

A closer look at the tiles.

After some discussing with the wife, I decided to take on the project of redoing the fireplace. First thing to do was tear it out. This was surprisingly hard work.

Here is a picture of the tiles being taken out in front of the fireplace. This was by far one of the hardest parts of the whole project.

This is what it looked like when everything was removed.

Now it was time to purchase the materials. I got everything at Lowes. It was a little pricey, so I may recommend getting your wood from a lumber yard and cutting out that middle man price jump. Learning as I go.

I decided I wanted to use Pine wood for building of the mantle.

For the tiles, I went with Ivetta White.

Here is a picture of the big tiles for the front of the fireplace

And the smaller sizes for around the fireplace.

Time to start building. I had everything measured, written down, and designed out before beginning.  Doing this made the building process go smoothly and fun.

Beginning Stages of the mantle.

Moving right along.

What a mess.

It took me one full day to completely build the mantle. This is towards the last stages.

Now it was time to put in the tiles.

Next I built a frame to fit inside the open area where the tv used to be above the fireplace. We decided to keep the two media component openings to give us the option to mount a tv on the wall. I needed to build a few shelves to fit inside those openings, so that it would be level with the top of the mantel. You will see those a little later.

I created a door on the side of the mantel, so that I could have a way to get to the gas key whole.

A close up of the tiles.

Now it was time to do the extended top portion of the mantel.

I used construction adhesive to mount the boards to the wall. For the very top part I nailed as well as glued to the wall for best support. I mounted the mantel to the wall by ripping a board and attaching one half to the wall and the other half to the back of the mantel then attaching the two. The shelves I spoke of above are now inside the two media component openings.

Now it came time to paint. We used Valspar Ultra White Flat Interior paint (Lowes) with added primer. On the top portion we painted the walls white to give the illusion that it was part of the mantel as a whole.

Here is what it looked like when it was complete.

I then created two doors to cover the media component openings.

Here are some pics of the completed fireplace.

This is how we decided to display our television.

Finally here are a few bonus pics of how we will decorate for this upcoming Christmas season.

Thank you for visiting my blog and reading through this post. I hope you are inspired and would love to see some of what you all do. Cheers! Jason