fireplace | Beneath My Heart

Our Simple Fall Mantel

October 18, 2012 AT 10:12 am 24 Comments

October 18, 2012 By traci 24 Comments

Hey friends! I hope you enjoyed the three A-MA-ZING days of giveaways we just hosted. We had so much fun getting those giveaways together and working with sponsors to create the most awesome prize packages EVA! I am so excited to see who wins, and I hope there are some Beneath My Heart readers in the mix!

If you didn’t get a chance to enter yet, there’s still time! Click on the links below:

Everything AND the Kitchen Sink Giveaway

The PIN-acle of DIY Goodness Giveaway

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR {to keep it all in} Giveaway

Today, I wanted to share with you our simple Fall Mantle.

I am was excited to finally have a space to decorate in this house! Unforturnately, I had no money. Smile

So I decided to just try and use what I already had to decorate my mantle. And I wanted to keep it simple since the rest of our house is a cluttered mess!

The wreath I used is one that I usually put on our front door. It was a gift to our family when Mom passed away three years ago, so it has a special meaning to me. I love the gold bow on the wreath.

You may notice that we put wood blinds on both of the windows. Every since we moved into this house over a year ago, I have hated those ugly windows on each side of the fireplace! And I didn’t like the fireplace either. I wanted to tear that whole wall down and build something else.

But since I put those wood blinds up, I am in love with my cute little windows on each side of my {now} beautiful fireplace!

This area has such a cozy, cottagey feel now.

I also got a new rug for this room. It definitely gave an immediate warmth to the room.

I had six little wicker votive holders that I bought at a thrift store this past summer for a couple of bucks, and I just placed them on each side of the wreath. They look so pretty lit up with candles in the evening!

The large basket in the fireplace is from Goodwill. I bought it for $3.50 several years ago. We usually store the kids’ toys or blankets in it. And the two little pumpkins are Eli’s. He picked them on his Pre-K field trip to Boyd’s Orchard here in Ky.

The monogrammed stool is a project I completed my very first year of blogging. We kept it in our guest house at our previous home.

I am so glad we painted the brick this beautiful gray color (Ebony Fields by Valspar). We hadn’t planned to paint the door to match, but I am so glad we did!

I eventually want a beautiful old wood front door, but this looks good for now.

When I was putting this all together this past Saturday, Adam was sitting on the couch watching cartoons. He looked up and saw the fireplace and said, “Oh Mom! It’s beginning to feel like HOME!”

Sweet, sweet, boy. I know what he means.

Our house has been upside down for over a year, and to finally have some rooms coming together and feeling like “home” is just good for our hearts.

It makes me so grateful for our home. Not for the material possessions in it, but for the feeling it gives us as a place of love and security.

There truly is “No Place Like Home!”

What is your favorite thing about HOME?

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Filed Under fireplace, Uncategorized 24 Comments

How to build a Fireplace Surround

October 11, 2012 AT 10:03 am 29 Comments

October 11, 2012 By traci 29 Comments

Thanks for all of your sweet comments on my Fireplace Makeover Reveal yesterday.

I wanted to hug all of your necks! We (mostly Cy) worked so hard on that fireplace surround, so it was great for us to read all the great positive feedback. I felt like y’all were giving us a bunch of “high fives”, and it was awesome. Smile

If you came to my house to see the fireplace in person, you and I would look something like this…

And then we would go get a Coke at McDonald’s to celebrate, and probably eat chocolate too.

Today, I want to show you the steps we took in creating our fireplace surround.

Cy had to get pretty creative to make it work, but he did it.

We were using this picture as our inspiration…

source

There were two problem areas on our fireplace.

1. The brick stuck out in two different places.

2. The vents were going to need to be covered up by the surround.

Cy started the project by building a frame above the mantle ledge to create a flat surface between the two places where the brick stuck out.

To attach the wood to the brick you need to first drill a hole in the brick with a concrete drill bit. Then drill through the wood as well.

Next, add PL Adhesive by Locktite to the back of the wood…

Then attach the wood to the brick using a concrete screw.

The brick on top of the fireplace stuck out a bit, so Cy had to come up with a way to create a flat surface on the front.

He used his level to help him figure it out.

By attaching a “filler” piece to the 2×4, he was able to create a level surface to attach the plywood to.

Once he had his frame, he added a large piece of cabinet grade birch plywood to it.

Next, we added 1×6 boards of Poplar wood to create the “planks.” You could use pine or mdf boards to save money because you will be painting them.

If you put nickels between each board as you attach them, it creates nice even spacing between each board.

Next, Cy began attaching ripped pieces of 2×4’s below the mantle (the same way he did above the mantle) to create a frame to attach the birch plywood to.

He cut and attached birch plywood directly below the mantle…

And down both sides of the fireplace to cover the vents…

Because we wanted to cover the vents, we had to attach the wood a little bit closer to the fireplace opening than we would have liked. We only have about 4 inches between the wood and the fireplace opening on the sides. Therefore, it technically cannot be a working fireplace. It doesn’t work right now anyway, so we are okay with that.

Cy added a 2×4 to the front brick ledge and trimmed it out with the birch plywood to create the mantle.

Next he covered up the mantle and the sides of the fireplace with ripped 1×6 poplar boards to fit.

He also added 1×4 poplar boards to picture frame the planks above the mantle.

Then there was a lot of adding decorative trim to the fireplace.

It is really up to you how you want to trim out your fireplace. We just chose the pieces we liked and added them.

After Cy finished trimming everything out, he caulked all of the crevices. Don’t forget to caulk! It makes a world of difference!!

I forgot to take an after picture of the picture molding that Cy add with 1/2 x 3 inch poplar, but you can see it in the picture below.

I painted the wood with two good coats of white paint, and the brick with Ebony Fields by Valspar. It’s a gorgeous blackish, grayish, brownish color. Smile

Cy also cleaned out the inside of the fireplace and spray painted it with a high heat spray paint.

And we were finished!

You can see in this picture that I also painted our front door the same color as the brick. It really made a huge difference in the space.

Hopefully I can get the mantle decorated soon and share it with you.

If I left anything out, or if you have any questions about this process, feel free to ask!

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Filed Under fireplace, husband's handiwork, New Home 29 Comments

Our Fireplace Make-over

November 20, 2009 AT 7:00 am 27 Comments

November 20, 2009 By traci 27 Comments

We have lived in our current house for 4 1/2 years. It was built in 1968 and was definitely a “fixer-upper” when we bought it.

I hope to show you more pictures of the changes we’ve made on future posts, but my before pictures were not digital, so I will have to take pictures of pictures. Like this post…

One change we made to the house this year was the fireplace in our bedroom. It was hand made from Kentucky fieldstone. I love that it looks rustic, but it didn’t seem to fit in with the way I wanted to decorate our bedroom.

It was very “dated”. It had a huge solid wood mantel, but it was stained an “orange-y” color. And then there was the gold tone fireplace cover that seemed to SCREAM 70’s.

I told my husband I wanted to cover it up with paneling like the rest of our room, because I couldn’t figure out how to make it look the way I wanted. (I am SOOOOO glad we didn’t!)

This is a “picture” I took of a “picture” several years ago. Yikes! It’s painful for me to look at. Sorry the picture quality is so poor.

Can you see why I just wanted to cover the whole thing up? So dull and bland.

Finally, this fall, we decided to do something to change it. It was a very SIMPLE and CHEAP re-do.

We started by painting the mantle white and adding some molding details on the top and bottom.

Then we took out the old gold-tone fireplace cover, cleaned up the inside and painted it black, and bought a black fireplace screen from Target to place in front.

My husband also installed can lights in the ceiling to spotlight the mantel.

That’s it! And the difference was amazing!

I added this Christmas picture to compare to the old Christmas picture. And it seems I only take pictures of my fireplace around Christmas time anyway.

The picture below shows the molding he added to the top and bottom of the wood mantel.