Fireplace, Part One, or To Create We Must First Destroy.

So, here's what the fireplace used to look like (circa Xmas 2010):

Originally the fireplace was painted the same yellow-beige as the rest of the trim. Hubby painted it with white gloss latex, along with the rest of the trim in the living room.

And now:

Well, we decided we wanted to strip the latex off and repaint all the trim in the house with oil instead, and the trim painting project got put on hold for 18+ months....

So one day a few months ago, I thought to myself, what would make a good day project? Stripping the fireplace.

Only this is what I had after six hours of stripping:

It was a total nightmare. The Citristrip kept drying out and nothing wanted to come off. I even tried using the highly toxic conventional stripper, with the same results. I draped a plastic drop cloth over it to keep the stripper from drying out, and it still wasn't working. Not to mention the stripper wouldn't come off either. HUGE FRIGGIN' MESS.

So the hubby ripped all the trim and MDF off. The plan: widen the frame by 2 inches on each side (to make the legs more proportional to the height), recover in new MDF, prime, paint, and make a new mantle. We will probably also replace the tile, either in something a little lighter or maybe matte black, probably subway tile.

As for the mantle, I'm thinking something like this one from The Lettered Cottage:

Although I really love this fireplace from Sweet Something Designs:

The clean lines are great, and I love how the fireplace acts as its own mantle, but we have no hearth and to make our fireplace that deep (and still functional) would be a huge project. Right now, after having to look at my fireplace in varying states of disaster for the last few months, I really just want to get this fixed quick and cheap.