Showing posts with label fireplace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fireplace. Show all posts
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Fireplace Fakeout
Note: Not our ugly fireplace. Some lovely, decorated fireplace from HGTV.
I dislike our fireplace. I have been trying my best to stop saying that I hate this or that sucks, because our child is a sponge, who last week told me he was waiting for something to arrive. Arrive? You are three! But let's stick with learning 'arrive' and 'have you noticed?' and not 'hate' or 'sucks'. So. Dislike. I mentioned what I'd like to do to it in a previous post.
Since then, a friend came over a few weekends ago and painted the fake brick the same bamboo shoot color as the rest of the downstairs. yay! (I would take pictures of that, but to be honest, our house is FULL of cabinets that were delivered and not yet installed. Like, seriously. I told another friend that they are oppressive reminders of my huge investment and unrealized dreams. So, no pics of the inside. Sorry. Next month, hopefully.)
Anyway, the green looks nice. I still have not done anything to cover the heinous fake brick that's facing the fireplace (and not the wall). I had this idea about tiling it with something pretty. That could still happen. but in the meantime, to satisfy my obsessive nature, I am researching awesome fake stuff I could do to our fireplace without taking out all the brick, doing whatever magic needs to happen to the chimney to make it useable again, and spending probably $5000. No, seriously, a fireplace insert, screen, brick/tile, centering the hole on the wall, and removing all the awful fake stuff, easily five grand.
Brick: Make your brick look like cooler brick. This brick-anew stuff looks kind of awesome. I really like the misty color, but I think the rest of my house lends itself to the taupe. I'm not sure if i would do the existing fake wall brick with one of these and then tile over the fireplace brick. I read that you can trowel joint compound over painted brick to make it look more like a textured wall and less like the sad, sad remnant of the 70s.
Fire: Man, gel fire? That's kind of cool. Also, it appears that you can do this ventless, without electricity or gas, and that it actually generates heat. So basically, a zero-installation solution to "the power is out and we're freezing". I get that it will not keep the whole house warm overnight, but hey, we could plop some mattresses down on the living room floor and probably not die. I'm just saying. Yeah, yeah, I'm probably delusional. I occasionally have these random thoughts of how well prepared we are for the lack of electricity and network access for long periods of time. I think husband would rather just buy a generator, but it's my blog, so there. Love!
Do you guys read any The Lettered Cottage? That chick had an awesome mantel roundup a while back. The link is for part 1, there's also a part 2.
Lots of lovely.
Keep warm, folks!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Rain Rain Go Away
It was rainy today, and super windy. Still, contractor-father-in-law and his colleague both showed up and got a bunch of framing done. I will try to take a picture tomorrow morning.
When we get home, it is getting dark. In the morning, we are rushed. Weekends may be the only good picture times.
I realized that one of the things I was hoping to do with this blog is to drone on about random house stuff that I might or might not do, such that I do not make my husband crazy. (Husband is a really fantastic guy, who detests window shopping, so my over thinking renovations we're not doing for three years kind of makes him crazy.)
Truth be told, I remembered this almost immediately before I said "hey, honey, we should tile the fireplace brick, that we both hate". Wait, stop. This is the kind of thing that is prolly better for a blog and not for making husband nuts.
So anyway, we hate our fireplace. The chimney is centered on the wall, which is covered in skinny fake bricks painted off white. The hole for the fireplace itself is NOT centered on the hearth, which is covered with some incredibly uneven wide orange-ey brick. There is like a 1X8 or something painted brown in place of a real mantel. Not fun!
The rest of the downstairs is painted Valspar Bamboo Shoot, which is kind of green. It looks more beige on the Valspar website, but whatever. We did not paint the fake skinny brick because it was a pain, but that was a mistake and I want to paint it to match the rest of the walls.
Then I started thinking "Hey, DIY network just told me I could thinset tiles directly only brick. That sounds like a solution for my heinous fireplace problem." In the longer term, we'd like to yank the whole wall down, drywall it, and put in a new fireplace and mantel. I would also like some built ins on either side, which are really appropriate to the style of home. I would actually not be surprised if in the 70s someone took down the existing built ins and faced the wall with the brick to cover up where the built ins used to be.
So, paint, tile, build a thicker looking mantel shelf stained the same color as our door. Maybe a piece of reclaimed wood. That seems like a weekend project I could do all by myself! You know, in March of 2013 when I have a free weekend. :)
I am not an interior designer, or even a designer of any kind, but I put together a little board of the kinds of colors and finishes that would be a nice quick fix. I included one of the matching stained glass windows that flank the chimney, which are almost certainly original to the house. (There are 3 other stained glass windows in the house. The dining room one is my absolute favorite.) I think it's kinda cute.
For now, I have exhausted my fantasy-renovating energy by doing that and writing this post, so I guess it's time for bed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
