Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Fireplace, Part Two: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.

Well the MDF is was up (see below), the brad holes are caulked, and the whole thing is primed. I hate the mantle though. I think it looks way too big and too boxy. It's made from 1" x 8" boards. Hubby has been bugging me to let him nail it down and force me to commit.

At first I was thinking maybe just taking two inches off the front, but after living with it for almost a week, I'm seriously thinking we should make it look more like what was there before, but a little cleaner and simpler.

I would disassemble the current mantle and use one of the 1" x 8" boards, with trim underneath.

So here's some more fireplace inspiration I've been looking at. Initially I was kind of hoping it would look like this fireplace from The Peartree Cottage. That is a massive brick fireplace though, and the scale is very different than what I'm working with.

This is a DIY fireplace surround by Frugal Home Designs:
More trim detail than I would use though, but closer to my revised vision.

This one is from Domino, via Apartment Therapy. I kind of love it.

While our personal style is vintage modern, the house is more neo-classical generic builder, so the fireplace should really stay with a transitional style rather than something overly modern. I like the trim detail on this one too, so we will probably be copying that.

We picked up the new tile and started installing that. Turned out the old tile was adhered directly to dry wall, so it left huge holes while I was removing it, and in order to patch them we had to take down the MDF on the legs.

The tile is a 2" x 2" travertine mosaic from Home Depot. I'm pretty excited about how it's looking so far. Once the tile is done we can install the trim work and I can paint. It's taking a bit longer than I had hoped, but we should be done before the Spring semester starts.