9.03.2014

Fireplace Before and After

I'm baaack! Sorry for the little blog silence. Hope everyone had a great summer.

Here's a little what I've been up to lately:

If you could see me, you would see me doing a happy dance. After moving into our house over 13 years ago, I've been dreaming and scheming how to redo our family room fireplace. Now I finally broke my husband down and convinced him to help me out, and you know what? He even said it looks much better and we should've done this earlier. Of course, he will deny he said this, but I heard it, I swear!

So... here's what we were dealing with.

BEFORE

Okay, not totally hideous. But the room just felt heavy with this large amount of brick. It also felt dated to me and the insert contributed greatly to that. Also, we never once lit that insert. Not once.


 Taking this 500lb insert out and getting it out of the house, we no easy feat. My husband surprised me and quite frankly impressed me with a well thought out engineered plan.

Oh, did I mention that we made money on this project? Not too very often you can say that! I poo poo'd my husband that we shouldn't put it on craiglist, thinking who would buy this? Crazy stuff though, it sold quickly and for way more money than I thought we'd get out of it. Again, I will bow down to the mister and say well done!
 Now the insert was out and yikes, it was time to start the painting. I will admit I was SO nervous this was not going to work out like how I pictured in my head. In case you don't know painting brick is pretty much a permanent thing. Ha!



 I got to painting the bottom half and was working my way up when I began rethinking things.  If you recall I have been scheming about this fireplace for 13 years, people and what I have always envisioned was some sort of mdf, or planking detail on this fireplace. I was going to just paint it and see how I felt with just that, but what I really wanted was some planking detail. I showed my husband a photo from Pinterest that I liked and said "can you do this?" and he was like sure, then I was like great....happy dance.


 Sorry, I did not take better shots of all the steps but what he did was nailed about 4 or 5 boards to the bricks, then he nailed the mdf pre-primed planks to those boards and seperated each one with a nickel for spacing.

 Then to finish it off he put the same size planks around the edges to make it look more neater.

 I painted the brick with primer first and followed with Benjamin Moore's Super White in semi gloss. The planking was already primed so I just painted the same paint above as well. This is the same color as my walls.






 Voila! I am a happy camper. I love the arches in the fireplace and wood box, and I love how the beams stand out more now. The room is so much lighter and airy feeling. Love it!

As I am snapping photos I realized I never showed the before and afters of this whole room, since we did our little remodel 2 years ago! I will post those soon. Now that the girls are back at school, I should be getting back to blogging a little more frequently.



20 comments:

  1. Absolutely perfect! you mantle stood out with the painting of the bricks!

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  2. Oh my gosh, it looks AMAZING! I love the planking and how fresh and updated it looks now. Such a difference! I hear you on fireplace changes though - they can be really scary since it's such a big, permanent fixture in the house. Spectacular!

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  3. Stacey, it looks SO good!! I love the bright updated feel, and the arches! Yay for being so brave and going for it! :) Oooh, can't you picture it at Christmas? :)

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  4. Stacey - That is a beautiful transformation! All hail the power of paint!
    xo~Jill

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  5. That looks amazing Stacey!!! So bright and airy and I love how the mantel just pops now!!! Ahhhh the power of white paint!!!

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  6. It looks great! I love how paint can transform a room!

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  7. Gorgeous - where did you get the clock ??

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  8. Stacey it came out so beautifully!!! I love the planking, that is what I have been thinking about too. It is such a transformation from your red brick to this fresh, finished look, I love it!

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  9. It looks AMAZING!!! Well done!! :)

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  10. Wow! Huge transformation! The planking is neat - and the arched opening has much more character than the previous insert. Well done!

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  11. What a fantastic transformation...it looks great!

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  12. Wow, what a transformation I love it! It's so much lighter and brighter. We painted our red brick fireplace too about a year ago and really love it.

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  13. oh, it looks so great!! the white is perfect with the wood mantel, and I love those arched openings :)

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  14. Stunning! Love the planking above, you have me thinking now!!

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  15. Love it! Was this a gas fireplace insert in an original wood burning fireplace? I have the same situation and am dying to remove the LARGE gas insert and use this as a wood burning fireplace occasionally and with a candle arrangement for special occasions. I have been told that the gas company has to remove the gas line and that I need to have the entire chimney evaluated to be sure it is safe. This is about $500! Did you remove the gas insert and the tubing up the chimney yourself?

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    1. Thank you, Linda. No, it was not a gas fireplace. I would definitely hire professionals if it was gas, never can be too safe with that.

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  16. This looks great! I was so happy to see your post, b/c we have the SAME insert and it has to go! I am not sure how we will get it out...was it very messy to remove?

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    1. It wasn't very messy because we never used it at all and I think the previous owners must have either or they kept it very clean. It was extremely heavy though.

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