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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You can spray paint the gold. Maybe oil rubbed bronze if that matches your decor?
As for the marble, you can tile over it. My boyfriend and I are building a house and we are using this subway tile on an upstairs fireplace: http://m.lowes.com/product?langId=-1&storeId=10702&catalogId=10051&productId=3106287&store=595&view=detail&nValue=SEARCH. It’s reasonable and if you do it yourselves, it shouldn’t be too expensive. There are tons of YouTube videos on home improvements! Just be sure to use non sanded grout with the travertine. You could also antique the mantle! If I think about it the next time I’m over there, I can email you a picture of the fireplace so you can see the tile.
Thank you!!!
You can purchase Rustoleum’s high heat spray in black and very easily spray paint the gold part. The bottle has a photo of a grill on it and it’s at Lowes/Home Depot. I have done it in two different houses and it’s a great product and is almost instantaneous makeover. Then you can at least fix half the problem before you figure out how to hide the marble!
So do take the gold part out somehow and paint it outside or do you super-tape to try and protect everything else and spray it where it is? I have the same gold issues on our fireplace and want to change it but I’m not sure where to start. 🙂
I believe I had one that came off easily, but you can just use painters tape and newspaper to cover the areas (or walls!) nearby so you do not spray black everywhere! It’s a great cheap/easy fix for old fireplaces! Good Luck!
My husband and I redid our fireplace last winter and I love it! The first step was spraying the gold black, using high heat resistant spray. Next, we covered our black tiles with Air Stone, which it at Lowes. They are stones that have a lot of air in them so you can just glue it right on to the tiles using their adhesive. It took us one day and under $150 for two fireplaces! Maybe worth checking out!
AWESOME!!! Thanks for the idea!
Now that you are a homeowner I think you should check out younghouselove.com! they are amazing! lots of handy tips on there.
So said they are taking a break from blogging.
I just seen that they were taking a break and I get it the amount of work they do on all 3 of their house plus just having the second baby. There is a ton to see in past post though well worth to look through they are amazing!
Oops! Meant to write so SAD. They are fantastic!
They did a herringbone tile on their fireplace in their last house that was beautiful! http://www.younghouselove.com/2013/03/fireplace-makeover-stick-a-fork-in-it/
They did it with what i think is marble tile, but you could pick a more casual tile.
I’m so bummed they’re taking a break, but you can definitely get some good ideas from their archives and forums 🙂
LOVED that makeover! Even if you removed the door and opened it up, it would look much better!
We want to redo our fireplace too. Lots of gold and a southwestern thing going on with the tile…not our taste. These two links are what we will use to help us. Maybe they’ll help you!
http://www.infarrantlycreative.net/how-to-paint-a-brick-fireplace/
http://freckleschick.blogspot.com/2013/06/stoked-fireplace-mini-facelift.html?m=1
A trip to Home Depot or Lowe’s should help you out. (Do they have those in NC?) I know I’ve seen tiles or similar overlays there you can cover the marble with. I have friends that did that with a marble backsplash in their kitchen that they didn’t like. It looks great now!
Ooooh I love seeing DIY reno projects- I can’t wait to see what you decide to do!
Is that your new house with décor? How did you do that so fast? We moved into our house in July, I have like no decorations up still!
I agree with the other comments- spray paint the gold with a high heat paint and there are tons of options for tiling over that marble. At our old house, we had this super ugly jade 6inch square tile that was so ancient we couldn’t remove it so we tiled over it with a beige tile. Our current house we are building our entire fireplace. Two weekends ago we installed a LED fireplace and just this week we picked out a slate mosaic tile from the Tile Shop to do the surround.
Home projects are fun!
Be prepared for a completely useless comment of my uncontainable excitement.
“YOU HAVE A FIRE PLACE! LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY!”
Haha, okay, done now. I love it.
I actually really like the marble and white frame…you just have to switch out the fireplace gold nasty cover! Maybe take it out altogether and put in those big white candles you see in magazines? You can get the fake ones!
You are that decorated already?????????????????????????????????????????
Switch out the gold frame (sell it on kijiji) and get one you like … I imagine you will not mind that marble as much.
Julie,
Congrats on your new home! What a wondeful feeling. Now prepare to spend money. Not only on items you have to fix/repair when it breaks AND decorating! A house is always revolving and changing in time as your taste and ideas change. But that’s the beauty of it, other then the money being spent. 🙂
I think the marble is a nice touch. I would get rid of the gold. Is there a way to remove just that piece? I would think there would be. Is it a wood burning fireplace or gas? I can’t tell in the picture. I can ask my hubby on some ideas since he is a home-builder and will have some good suggestions on what you could do within a reasonable budget.
So happy for you, Ryan and Sadie baby.
Heather 🙂
I love the look of painted white brick around the fireplace! But if you don’t love it, I have seen a really pretty white tile in Herringbone pattern that is awesome. I saw it on the show Fixer Upper (which is my new obsession!). You should check it out! Good luck 🙂
Ha! I was also going to recommend Young House Love. I would probably remove the marble tile and then tile over it. We have a similar fireplace and did rectangle mosaic glass tile a few years ago and still love it. We ended up putting a stone tile on the hearth. Just make sure to use a good sealer because we didn’t and the grout looks perpetually dirty.
First, I love your blog and congratulations on the new home! We have a lot in common, both young married professionals with crazy dogs (who we treat as children!). And some day my husband and I would like to move to a smaller city like Charlotte! Beyond that I am also very interested in healthy living and really enjoy your daily updates.
Second, I follow Liz Marie’s blog and she offers great DIY advice. I think you would enjoy connecting with her: http://www.lizmarieblog.com/
I love the decor in your new house so far! Congratulations on the new house! I would definitely start with the high heat paint and then go from there! you can always change it later, but such a small investment up front. We live in NC as well, and are currently in the process of buying a house. I am finding myself so stressed! We bought a house several years ago, and I can tell you times have changed and it’s much more stressful now. Did you feel like it wasn’t really yours until the keys were in your hand? I definitely feel that way right about now! Just over a week to go!
I would definitely keep the marble. Don’t cover it with tile!! It’s everywhere right now – white and white marble is very popular. You could easily replace the gold framing.
Definitely check out Young House Love, for this and many other household DIY projects. They really explain it step by step, suggest brands and products to use and answer a lot of questions on common mistakes. Really, really helpful resource. They have a book too, for once you’re done with the immediate must-do projects and are ready to tackle some fun DIY stuff!
I would definitely spray paint the gold (black or oil rubbed bronze) and then I would re-evaluate. I really like the marble – it is the mantle that makes me think it is too fussy, so I would switch that out instead of the marble.
You should keep the marble!