Hey guys! What’s shakin’?
Things are going semi-smoothly around here. I feel like I’m doing a lot of back-and-forth today since the whole no internet at home thing makes blogging and working from home a little challenging! Anyway, where did we leave off? Breakfast!
After breakfast, I worked from a local coffee shop for a few hours before popping into the grocery store for a few necessities and driving home to let Sadie out. Before a quick walk with Sadie around the neighborhood, I grabbed part one of what would be a three-part lunch.
Today’s lunch was kind of random and took place in increments since I was in a snacky mood and wasn’t feeling overly hungry. The first part included a banana smoothie that I made with frozen bananas, vanilla Greek yogurt and unsweetened vanilla almond milk.
I meant to throw some spinach in there too but totally forgot until half of that smoothie was in my belly.
Part two of my lunch occurred when I arrived back home from my walk with Sadie. Peanut butter and jelly, baby!
And part three, which I suppose was more like an afternoon snack than lunch, took the form of tuna salad.
After lunch, I planned on heading back out of the house but ended up spending time on the phone with the company behind our new home security system. The monitors were beeping every two minutes or so and driving Sadie absolutely bonkers which, in turn, meant she was driving me bonkers. I’m ready to have all the kinks of our new home worked out, but I suppose that takes time.
And now I’d love your advice… Ryan and I have a handful of home improvement projects we’re hoping to tackle in the coming months (years?). Up first? A fireplace makeover!
For whatever reason, neither of us can stand the appearance of the fireplace in our new living room. It doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of our house and I think the marble and gold detailing look too formal for our style. Do any of you guys have experience making over a fireplace? I’d love any tips, tricks and advice you may have to share. Ryan and I both like the look of the white mantle and framework, but the gold and marble must go which may be a little tricky. We’d really love to try to tackle this project ourselves but don’t want to mess it up.
Of course I turned to Houzz for some inspiration. Here is one look I think might work, though I’m not in love with it:
Thoughts? Ideas? I’d love to hear them!
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Julie – that PB & J looks delish! What kind of PB is your favorite?
I agree with you that the fireplace is very formal. I’m sure with the help of Houzz and Pinterest you will be able to make it into a fireplace y’all love!
It depends! This was Skippy Natural which I like when I’m craving peanut butter with the “childhood pb” flavor… aka the kind that has sugar. 🙂
I definitely think painting the screen all black (oil rubbed bronze perhaps) would be a good first start. You should check out the rustoleum brand as they have paint designed specifically for high heat surfaces. You may find that by just updating that part of the fireplace it has a less formal look to it.
You can paint the brass black, that is the easy part. You can rip the marble out and replace with a different tile. Maybe slate? My fireplace is similar and several of my neighbors put slate tiles over the existing black (which would be your marble). I think they found inspiration on pinterest. Good luck and congratulations on your first home!
Thanks for the ideas! You’re giving me hope that we can do this ourselves. 🙂
julie,
you can actually REMOVE those brass pieces of the black parts!!!! we have a gas burning fireplace that looked the same. i HATE brass accents. when we moved into our house everything was contractor grade “old lady gold.” we made over our fireplace last january and didn’t realize we could remove the brass pieces. they slide right off. we also had a mesh curtain, which we removed. it looks 100 x’s better. we went to home depot and purchased 12 x 12 split face tiles and refaced our fireplace. i agree, keep the white wood surround. i actually don’t think the marble looks that bad but a hexagon pattern would also look beautiful.
I would research a way to make the fireplace look more distressed. I see what you are talking about in that it has a more formal style than the rest of the house. I love the accents you chose. Nice decorating project. 🙂
My friend Virginia has a DIY blog and she redid a fireplace recently. Not sure if it’s your style but you never know! If not, she has tons of great DIY tips on there– I swear, I’m painting our entire house based on her advice 🙂 http://www.livelovediy.com/2013/10/faux-stacked-log-fireplace-tutorial.html
Awesome!! Definitely checking this out now!
For a quick fix with the gold, I’d spray paint with rustoleum spray paint. We did the same to our fireplace and it made a world of difference. Good luck!
I can’t help with the gold part…are they just the doors? However, we did repaint our fireplace. I forget what the stuff was called but it was pretty thick and goopy and left a nice glossy finish. It’s just black but cleans easily and is meant for being around the heat. You’d have to check with the people at the store to be sure but maybe just a thought that would save you some money!
The black & brass is lovely! just kidding. I love the look of painted brick or stacked stone.
I’m loving the idea of a fireplace makeover! I also love, love, love Houzz and the picture of the fireplace that you posted. I think it would look great in your new place.
I like what you posted from Houzz! I’d just remove the doors as a start – keeping it open would like nicer. The white frame looks great though!
My husband and I tackled a TON of renovations when we bought our first home. While it can be scarey thinking you’ll screw something up, it’s really not as bad as you think. We utilize You Tube a LOT for video tutorials, and the pro’s at Lowe’s and Home Depot are REALLY helpful in explaining tips that you wouldn’t think of. Our most recent was a complete remodel of an unfinished patio — new windows and frames had to be built for the new windows….new drywall, new ceiling and all new ceramic tile. Lemme tell ya … Lowe’s doesn’t have a rewards program, BUT their advice (every other day) was REALLY a reward in itself. They also have weekend classes for common projects. I’ve never attended, because our projects never seem to coordinate. We will be attacking our fireplace area as well, and looking into a field stone look. Should be interesting! 🙂
I had no idea they have classes! Looking into this! Thanks for the tips!
I’m not one with diy projects, but if the fireplace black and gold part (heyyyoooo U-C-F !!! Sorry, it was automatic) can be removed, then I would definitely go with an open look. You could always put up an old fashion barrier, like cast ironish…
Okay, since that probably didn’t even make sense, we all know why I started with “I’m not one with diy projects” Good Luck though; I’m sure Ryan can handle it!
I definitely like the brick idea, it feels so cozy! Which I think is what the marble and gold might be missing, that cozy, homey feeling. I don’t have a whole lot of advice, but I can’t wait to see what y’all come up with!
I feel your pain on having to deal with a crazy dog and a crazy security system, we had a similar experience at my in-laws when their fire alarm was going off and their pup was in panic mode! No fun!
When we moved into our home we had gold accented doors on our fireplace. We took those out and purchased solid black gate looking thing (real descriptive I know…sorry!) and it helped a lot. We broke up the marble and replaced it with tile. Seemed to fit better with our house. Look up Pinterest ideas or and Lowe’s/ Home Depot person can help! Good luck!
Yeah I think that would be a better fit for us too!!
As a temporary fix (until you can figure out what you want to do permanently), you can use chalk paint. Check this out: http://eastcoastcreativeblog.com/2012/07/simple-fireplace-upgrade-annie-sloan.html
Also, is this a working fireplace? If so (and if you plan to use it), you’ll want to make sure that whatever you do is heat-resistant.
The house looks awesome! Can’t wait to see more pictures as you get settled in.
Hope to run into you sometime when I’m in CHLT!
I agree with you on the fireplace upgrade. I would do a nice grey slate.
I think that helped me a lot was home projects is identifying exactly what it is in an inspiration photo that I’m gravitating to. So I think at least for me, it would be helpful to know what it that you like about the fireplace in that photo. Is it the all white look? That there is brick instead of marble? That it just looks more casual? I only ask because I would imagine that going from the stone tiles to brick would be harder than going from one type of tile to another. Unless, it’s an older home (can’t tell) and there is a chance there is brick behind the stone (I’ve seen that done as an easy DIY fix since often homeowners don’t like the look of the brick). Because you’d need to start further back into the wall otherwise your brick would be jutting out further than the wood. I’d imagine it would also make a difference what you’re working with. Is that a gas fireplace or wood burning?
I’d also say I know there is a tendency to want to tackle a bunch of DIY projects immediately after you move in, but when I bought my condo 2 years ago my realtor advised me to, as much as I could, wait a little bit for projects and let things breathe. It was hard advice to take and I totally admit I did some changes when I first moved in because I HATED some of the old paint colors. That said, I do feel like it’s been helpful to get a better feel for the home and my style in the home before making permanent changes. (Not to mention when I got quotes for things and saw how much some things actually cost it convinced me I could put it off for a little while. The only slightly disappointing thing related to projects like this is that tile can be really, really expensive. I was looking into retiling my bathroom but when I saw how much it would actually cost it convinced me to wait a little while.) I’d also say that when planning home remodeling projects it’s also worth while to keep in mind that there will be likely things that come up that you need to fix along the way that you didn’t plan for, even if they didn’t come up on your home inspection and to make sure you budget some $$ for that too. A good figure I saw somewhere, forget where, was to put the equivalent of one month’s mortgage payment into your house every year in updates or improvements.
Glad to hear things are going well on the new home! Security systems + dogs = headaches we had ours completely disabled as we couldn’t stand all the beeping, flashing lights and motion detectors.
As far as redoing a fireplace, I’ve got experience! In our last home we transformed our ugly outdated and unsafe gas fireplace into a rustic retreat that got compliments from everyone! The brass can be spray painted with fire safe paint found at any store, we got ours from Walmart. We took apart the mantle and ripped out the existing wood and stone. Then we cut and stained a 6 foot cedar beam for the mantle and painstakingly placed stacked stone wall “tile” sheets from floor to the mantle. It looked incredible!!
Before:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/v/t1.0-9/1385185_1387013938206086_2145600274_n.jpg?oh=3122a1b4f8661f52365debe56f509cd3&oe=54A5DBDC&__gda__=1419518097_47120a89dbddef7b5c330f756c15d8eb
After:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/v/t1.0-9/555807_1387013958206084_1989363618_n.jpg?oh=884c6203824f88afaa71abc31ed3ae07&oe=54933EA7&__gda__=1418494680_eaeed43e5d1348a422e448aa78b2d7ab
White marble is making a comeback. What about investing in a pretty iron fireplace screen and removing the black and gold?
My husband and I just bought our first house in May and my advice to you is to just live in the house for a while. Before we bought the house I also hated our fireplace and wanted to immediately change it. Now, a few months later, I still don’t love it but after living with it for a while and decorating, it’s not even on my short list of things to change. I am VERY impatient and wanted everything in my house done right away, but forcing myself to be patient and just live with things has been very helpful. With all of that being said, if you still want to change the fireplace, I’d start small, maybe change up the gate first and see what that does. Good luck and have fun!
Yes! I agree. I am terribly impatient too. I did easy things that I knew would be inexpensive and easy to change if necessary (i.e. paint), and held off on more expensive things at others advice until I’d lived in it. It was definitely smarter to take a little time and patience to see how the rooms were unfolding.
How nice that your new home has a fireplace. I’d PINTEREST it up for advice on that. Good luck!
Look into air stone from Lowes or Home Depot. I think it’a fairly budget friendly, easy to work with and looks beautiful, especially with white trim!
Here’s a random link to someone’s blog that has a fireplace similar to yours that did an air stone makeover. Good luck with whatever you guys decide!!!
http://simplykierste.com/2013/05/fireplace-makeover-airstone.html
Thank you!!!!!
I love the marble! I would just spray paint over the gold and see how that looks first. House looks beautiful. Congratulations!
Congrats on the new house! I empathize with all the organizational and set up challenges. We bought a house a year ago that had been vacant for 2 years…in Florida… We’ve progressed through immediate-need, moderate-desire, to now aesthetic/quality of life fixes and updates. You’ve gotten great advice:
– You can do most projects yourself, and Home Depot and Lowe’s (and small hardware places, too) are a great source of inspiration and support. They make you feel like you can truly do all sorts of projects and the staff are usually willing to walk you through it step by step. You could totally break up the marble and replace it with tile or another facing, and get some great blog posts from it, too.
– Wait a bit before tackling projects that aren’t immediately needed to make the house safe and liveable. Unless you have an event you need to get ready for, I recommend living settling in – see where you spend time, where your eyes go, what bothers you once you have all your things in the house. it’s good to think about seasons, too (don’t refurb the kitchen before a big cooking holiday and consider if you want the fireplace under construction if you want to hang stockings with care). A short-term fix (painting over the gold accents) may alleviate some of the urgency to replace the whole front. For us, waiting to decide on flooring inspired us to paint our concrete floors once we pulled up the old carpet – a cool project and we really like the effect.
Have a wonderful time – you are going to feel so awesome getting these projects done!
You can re-paint the gold accents, or you could just take the glass off altogether and get a decorative screen to put in front of it instead. Just FYI, I really wanted to just leave our fireplace open, but we found that our dog liked to get into it…
You may be able to just tile right over the marble with something like subway tile.
I don’t have any ideas but I’m so eager to know what you come up with… I’m in a similar boat.. except our marble is black with that nasty green + gold detail. Blegh!!!
A quick tip for painting the brass on your fireplace – use high temperature paint (recommended to us was stuff you can spray your outdoor grill with, your hardware store will know). I saw this in the above comments and I would have recommended this to you myself if someone hadn’t already beaten me to it. We have a hideous brass surround on our fireplace too and plan to do that (we haven’t done it yet because other projects have come first). But it’s on our to do list. Also part of our to do – adding stacked stone (or field stone, we haven’t decided) to our fireplace, just like someone mentioned above with the air stone (we’re using a Menard’s product – local home improvement store in our area, similar to air stone but a bit cheaper).
You can definitely do all the projects you want to do yourself – I’ve tackled some big jobs that I can’t believe I’ve done myself. (Repaired the boards in a couch, made a huge CUSTOM shelving system by hand for our garage – not from a kit, installing a new kitchen sink, and most recently I learned everything about HVAC systems and AC coils and repairing and replacing them. Not always fun, but you’ll surprise yourself!)
I can also vouch for the advice you get at Lowe’s – it’s amazing. And all Ace hardware stores hire retired contractors/plumbers/handymen, so you get AMAZING advice there. I got great advice about difficult projects there, as well as simple little short cuts from these guys above who’ve owned their homes for 30 years already. (Tip: wash your garage floor – easy! Bucket of water with some dawn dishwashing liquid thrown in, pour all over your garage floor, and then scrape it with an enormous squeegee. So clean! We do this seasonally. “So clean you can walk over it in white stockings” – Ace Hardware guy.)
What’s in your tuna salad? Is that chopped up celery or green onions?
My husband just redid our fireplace. It had gross white tile on it when we moved in, so he took off all the tile (and removed the mantel). We put travertine down on the “hearth”, which is on the floor, not built up, and did a dry-stack of stone. It turned out wonderfully and looks so nice. He’s in the process of building a dark stained mantel too, since the white traditional-style that was previously up doesn’t go with our tastes at all.
Sorry I have no experience with a fireplace makeover but I’m in LOVE with the tulip print on the mantle. Tulips are my favorite flower and would love something like that in my living room. Do you remember where you got it..would love to find something similar!!
Congrats on your new house! So exciting 🙂
Bridgette
We had the same problem! Here were some of my favorite ideas 🙂
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/214343263489440651/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/214343263489442271/
My recommendation is that you go immediately to younghouselove.com and let them teach you all the things.
I would try eliminating the gold first and see how you like it – you may find you like the fireplace a lot better once the gold is gone! Even removing the whole screen area and replacing it with an updated, black screen (if a screen is needed at all) would be a good temporary fix. We are renovating our house and it had the awful, cracked red tile on the hearth. So far, I’ve only gotten around to painting it but want to re-tile eventually.
My husband recently re-did our fireplace, too. We replaced mid-90’s gas logs (that weren’t fooling anyone) with a steel rod and glass rocks for a more modern look. It came from Hearth and Patio on Monroe Road. It was very reasonable and around $100 for them to install (didn’t want to mess with gas ourselves). You could easily paint the gold – Sherwin Williams sells a fire retardant paint that we used for our box. The old tiles were easy (and fun!) to break and remove so we did that ourselves. We replaced ours with penny round which came in sheets and was really easy to install. The actual renovation is easy – the hardest part is figuring out which design you prefer.
I’m always so hesitant to do something permanent with that marble. I think I would remove the brass accents (or spray paint them black with heat resistant spray), and then let it stew for a while. See if it grows on you or at least research other options.
There was once a time when peanut butter and cheese sandwhiches were more popular than peanut butter and jam..I’m not sure where that went but now I see cheese and jam more common, talk about all the combinations?? Haha 🙂
Are you into HGTV at all? The Property Brothers have done a TON of gorgeous fireplace makeovers. There isn’t a single one I don’t love since they always nail the modern/cozy vibe.
We bought our house in December. I live in Avondale in Jacksonville Florida. If you are familiar with the area, from visiting your parents, it has historic homes, but our fireplace was added years after it was built and is hideous! We want to re-do our fireplace to look sorta like yours, but with blue and white ceramic tiles where you have the gray and white tile, and have a white mantle like yours. Not sure if it would fit the rest of your home. I have found some really pretty ones on pinterest!
We had the same lovely brass accents on our gas fireplace. I bought some ‘high heat’ paint, made for things like fireplaces, at our local paint store. We painted out the brass with the black paint and it made all the difference!!!
You’d love it, I’m sure!! It will update the look instantly!!
You’ve got a lot of potential with your space!! Can’t wait to see what you do!
Check out HGTV & DIY websites. I’ve seen a few makeover shows on both channels refacing fireplaces with faux stone or brick that look 100% real and it lays right on top of the existing fireplace face that’s already there. Eliminates the hassle and mess of taking down the marble!!
If you want to do it rather cheaply and aren’t sure what you want (just sure that you hate what’s there now) – check out Smart Tiles – Home Depot sells them. Basically they look just like real tile but without the grouting and tile cutting, etc. But I think you may like the fireplace much more once those bronze accents are out.
We have an all black gas fireplace surrounded by dark gray tile on a while mantle, and I hated it when we moved in. Now, the gray has really grown on me and we have a new gray carpet so it ties in well. Check in to Flor carpet tiles too – newly discovered, so awesome.
We had an ugly tile on our fireplace that we couldn’t stand either and after researching it, found that it’s super easy to paint. I think I just searched on pinterest and found the exact paint to use. We finished with a heat resistant sealant just in case but with a gas fireplace I don’t think it was really necessary. Good luck!
Pinterest for fireplace ideas! The black/gold screen needs to go. Time to update that. The tile could use an update as well. The mantle itself seems to be in decent shape so unless you and Ryan plan to change the color I’d leave it alone. If there are any tile stores in Charlotte I’d check them out for ideas and color options. Sometimes the stores will have sample pieces you can borrow to see how it would look. Best of luck on your project.
Haven’t had a chance to read the comments but you can definitely remove the marble (i agree- it’s a tad… formal and even dated??). I believe tile/flooring companies can come fix that right up for you- they’ll bust out the part you don’tw ant and build up tile in its place ( and you can get really awesome smaller tile built in to create a pattern .. if you’re into that 😀
ALSO! http://www.pigandpaint.com/2012/08/fireplace-tilefinallytiled.html
Try Rustoleum high heat paint in black for the gold. We did that to get rid of the brassy gold on our gas fireplace and it was perfect! It comes in a can too, so you don’t have to make a tent around the fireplace to keep the spray paint from getting everywhere. It is really smelly though, so open some windows. Oh and stirring it won’t be good enough to mix it. I recommend giving it a good shake first, then stirring it to bring out any air bubbles. Comes in different shine levels too. Best thing we could have done to make our fireplace look new!
Thanks, Jessica!! I appreciate the recommendation!
My boyfriend and I are in the process of building a home together right now. We were just talking about the fireplace yesterday and I love love love painted white brick and some reclaimed barn wood. I am obsessed with Houzz as well. I can’t wait to see your fireplace transformation.
Younghouselove.com did a fireplace makeover day last year in their old house. You should check it out. They break most things down step by step.
Hey Julie! Congrats on the new house. Can’t wait to see more pictures! I know the blog Young House Love has lots of amazing makeovers and home improvement tips. Definitely check it out!
Love their blog!! Great recommendation! I’m definitely going to be exploring their archives!
No advice as to how to tackle the project, as my dad is my go-to for that stuff…he just redid their fireplace at home with slate and a white mantle. My advice would be to put an outlet on top of the mantle and one on the side for christmas lights 🙂 It was a little extra work but it was so easy and nice to not have cords running across the floor
Lady you are SO speaking the truth. Ever since we bought our house it has become SO obvious that there will ALWAYS be another project…
Personally, I love fireplaces with wood & stone. Kind of a lodgey style.. but I don’t think that would match your house! I do like the picture you put in though, that would work really well in your home!
Me too!! Those are my favorite. But I agree, they don’t really “fit” with our house unfortunately.
In our first house we had a fireplace that was brick (which was painted white) and a gold fire place. My husband ended up painting the gold part black and it looked 1000x better! It was def a quick and cost-effective fix! Can’t wait to see more pics of your new house’