Fireplace Makeover

For nearly 5 years, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with our fireplace. Guess what?!? I figured it out. I’m delighted to share our Fireplace Makeover!

As many of you know this is our dream home. The minute we walked through the front door my heart skipped a beat and I think a gasp escaped my lips. This was the old home, with charm and built-ins and crystal knobs we’d been dreaming of for our family.

The fireplace is a focal point. Shortly after entering the front door you look into the living room and your eyes first meet our fireplace. In its original finish the fireplace was an orangey brick with gray grout and the hearth was tiled in a brown tile, later we found out it was actually terra cotta and had been glazed dark. In any event the look wasn’t one we loved. It may have been pretty in 1927 but it wasn’t the look we wanted to carry on into the future. I did want to keep our mantel and we restored it before putting it back up.

Okay, here’s the “before”

As you can see, the floor was all cracked inside the fireplace due to settling, the tile was cracked too and the mantel had lifted. The brick was just not a pretty color. I thought about painting and also asked Layla from the Lettered Cottage for some ideas here and she shared a pick my presto here.

All the ideas swirled and swirled inside my head. I wanted to maintain the charm and the character. I wanted coastal but historical. I wanted classic but also a bit different. This is what we came up with! Here’s a side by side comparison.

Refacing the fireplace, replacing the hearth, painting the firebox and adding the gas fireplace make so much difference to our space.

It now feels so cozy in here. The inviting space I was dreaming of!

I’ve taken some photos without the brass screen so you can see the fire in more detail. This is a vent free fireplace so we don’t need the screen but thought it would be good with the kids and dogs, especially Max who is a rascal. I could see him trying to take all those stones out of the hearth! My friend, Cori, gave us the brass screen. They’d had it out in the barn and I think it honors the time period the home was built and I LOVE the patina the screen has.

We knew we wanted the tile replaced and also thought we wanted help determining what to do to cover the brick. Joe Truglia was our mason and he is amazing! I told him I didn’t want anything too shiny and he thought Nantucket Rounds might work and that we might like Bluestone on the hearth. He told us to talk to Dean at Plymouth Quarries.

Dean was so great. He showed us a brushed bluestone that was perfect for the hearth. However, he thought the Nantucket Rounds wouldn’t work with our fireplace because we didn’t have enough room but he showed us something we fell in love with! For the surround we selected something so amazing with so much history.

We went with something called Heartland Stone. Isn’t is so pretty? I love the grays and blues and some tans that are in this stone. Heartland Stone is actually fossilized ocean floor from Oklahoma. When we saw it, we knew we just had to have it. I couldn’t believe it was once was the ocean floor. There are two sides. One side is fossilized and the other side looks like a wave pattern. You know when you’re at the beach at low tide and the waves have left marks in the damp sand? That’s the texture. We asked Joe to put the rough side out to mimic those waves on our fireplace. I also said I didn’t want any grout that we wanted it stacked. You can see more about the Heartland Stone here.

Below is a step by step in photos of the process:

The first step was for us to remove the mantel. Then Joe broke out the tile and the cement underneath it. We wanted the bluestone hearth to be flat to the ground. He also had to cut out some of the wood flooring as our old mantel sat on the tile and the wood floor. Then he refaced the fireplace with the Heartland Stone and added some mortar to inside the firebox where it was cracked. We had to wait for the concrete to set before doing any more work on it. Oh, that’s Joe in the picture above. Hi, Joe!

While we waited for the concrete to set. Luke fixed the mantel. There were bits that got dislodged while we were prying it off the wall and some bits were coming apart because of the settling of the house.

Once the mantel was back on and the cement had cured we tape everything off and painted inside with Rustoleum High Heat spray paint (affiliate link). If you’re spraying the inside of your fireplace make sure you get the high heat – 2000 degrees. I’ve linked to the one we used. We made sure to tape EVERYTHING off and use drop cloths as we didn’t want any paint to get on the new stone. We also opened the damper, all the windows and I used goggles and a mask. I’d show the beautiful pictures of me doing it but I’d rather show you how it looked after:

The black really looks so nice inside. It makes such a statement.

Paul Hitchcock installed our gas fireplace. He came highly recommended from my friend Cori and I loved her fireplace. We decided to go with a ventless gas system because our chimney isn’t lined and I like the convenience of a remote control. The set we went with was the Empire 24″ Charred Oak Log Set  It looks so realistic and even has glowing embers.

See how realistic it looks.

Now if we lose power, as we often do in Scituate with storms, we can easily make our home warm with this fireplace. It’s powerful enough to heat our whole first floor. If we feel it’s too warm we can open up the damper to decrease the heat and we can also turn the gas level down.

There’s a built in oxygen depletion sensor and it cuts the gas if it thinks the oxygen is too low.

It’s so lovely. We were gonna go out the other night and decided to sip wine in front of the fire instead.

Okay, now I’m gonna let the photos do the talking and I’ll add a source list at the bottom of this post. Paul doesn’t have a website, but if you’re local I’m happy to give you his number. We are very pleased by his work and the gas fireplace.

The chairs are really over by the window but wanted to pull it over by the fire so you get the feel for this room. Furniture needs to be 2 feet from the gas fireplace and I realize it looks close but this was about 2o inches away from the fireplace.

We’re all loving cozy afternoons and evenings by the fire. I hope you like how it came out. I’m just in love with it. A huge thank you to Joe, Paul and Dean for helping our vision become a reality.

If you have any questions about this project please leave them in the comments or email me.

I’m including a full source list below. This source list contains affiliate links, you can read my full disclosure policy here.

Living Room & Fireplace Source List

• Wall Color – Benjamin Moore’s Mascarpone in Matte
• High Heat Spray Paint (inside fireplace) – Rustoleum
• Masonry Work Joe Truglia
• Bluestone Hearth and Heartland Stone – Plymouth Quarries
• Paul Hitchcock – Gas Fireplace and Installation
• Vintage Brass Screen – From Friend, similar here and here
• Oriental Rug -Vintage, similar here and here
• White Chair – Ikea, similar here
• Cashmere Throw Blanket – HomeGoods, similar here and here
• Books – Vintage
• Seltzer Bottles – Bent Nail Farm Antiques, similar here and here
• Hand Felted Bunny – Newhall Naturals (my sister in law made him)
• Wooden Spool – Brimfield, similar here
• Pillow – Minted
• Wooden Houses – Target
• Lantern – Target
• Flameless Candles – Balsam Hill
• Round Mirror – Home Depot