Our 70’s fireplace renovation extravaganza is finally nearing completion! This is quite a reason to celebrate since we started Thanksgiving weekend, which was three months ago. It’s to be expected with a with a house full of three pets and two kids under the age of three, right? Right. This is also amazing because this is our first home renovation EVER – my husband Kevin had just started learning carpentry before starting this project. Thankfully, we have my talented father who is quite a whiz with a saw and router. I couldn’t be more proud of him! Here’s our journey so far…
This is where we started – absolutely nothing but a fireplace. No mantel no nuthin. In this pic you see a sample of the mantel Kevin designed and one whitewashed brick, which we decided not to do since we’re going for a rustic, and not country look. Right decision? I’m not sure yet. This is in our basement and it’s dark down there. I think we need to paint the pumpkin colored walls first. Leave a comment if you have ideas!
We had never tiled before doing the fireplace, so needless to say, we were very nervous. We read a few online articles about it on This Old House, and got to work. Since time is energy in our house, we decided to go with 1-inch mosaic squares so the size could be adjusted without renting a tile saw. And, we’re also a bit lazy. But it looks fantastic anyway! We bought the tile at Lowe’s – it was literally $3.48 a sheet.Â
Close-ups of the tile and the trim detail. Kevin picked out this beautiful leaf molding to finish off the edges.
These doors are not store bought, people, my dad and Kevin hand made them in my dad’s workshop over Christmas break. Amazing! They worked really hard, even through a bout with the stomach flu, but it was a good excuse for my dad to use his new router bits.
Here’s the detail on the mantel – oh how I love this mantel! Kevin did an amazing job designing this all by himself – he pieced 3 strips of ceiling molding together, put a top and bottom on it and attached to the already protruding bricks. It’s chunky and it’s perfectly proportionate with the huge wall of bricks. So, now it’s time to decorate! I just bought a bunch of neat things at the local flea market that I’m going to spray paint HGTV style. Things like vases, a lantern and an old milk jug. More on that soon!
