Fireplace Makeover

I mentioned in a previous post that Husband and I painted our fireplace. This was such an exciting transformation that it deserves it's own post.

Our house came with a big nuisance - a fireplace. A big, ugly, useless (in my opinion) fireplace in the center of the family room. Plus the mantel was detaching from the wall. When we bought the house, the first big project I thought we would do was tear down the mantel (because ripping out the entire fireplace was too drastic and potentially too expensive) and rebuild one. That ugly mantel taunted me everyday for a little over a year. When it was clear that we were not going to tear down the mantel, I decided I was going to paint it. Our walls are Snowbound, but that seemed like a lame option. If the fireplace had to stay, it was going to bold and beautiful. Husband figured out how to re-attach the mantel to the wall and I decided the paint color would be Commodore Blue. The fireplace doors also needed a face lift, so we spray painted a rubbed bronze finish. On a night before we had friends over for my graduation party/dinner, Husband and I stayed up all night to paint. It was a pretty good graduation present.

Here is the original ugly fireplace in the middle of everything, complete with bumper pads, in all it's glory.

The fireplace doors could not be moved, so we had to tape them up spray paint them in the house. We did not compensate for all the over-spray, so the seat of the mantel received some rubbed bronze as well. Thankfully carpet only received spray paint powder, so that easily came up with the vacuum and some carpet shampoo.

Just the change in door finish made an incredible difference, but with all the over-spray and dirty red brick, I was anxious to get painting. It only took one coat of behr self-priming paint to finish.

Final product! I seriously went from hating/loathing the fireplace to loving it and wanting to tell everyone about it. It was a bold move, but it was definitely the right move for our home.

Stay tuned - tomorrow I show you what is above the mantel.