Fabulous Fireplace Makeover

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

In hopes that THIS fireplace soon wouldn't be there!!!

It's lovely, isn't it?!?

This picture was taken of our fireplace the day before we moved in.

Although I was thrilled to be moving into a house that would have not just one, but two real wood burning fireplaces {there's another one downstairs in the master bedroom}, I was really looking forward to the day we could redesign it to make it more "us". 

So just a few days before we left on our long trip to Utah for my brother's wedding, my crazy {I mean that in the best way} husband decided he wanted us to come home to a more beautiful fireplace in time for the holidays.

So he got to work!

He got rid of the higher fireplace hearth {that you can see in the above picture} about a year ago.

I actually liked the taller hearth because it provided more seating in our living room, but because our living room is quite small, my husband thought getting rid of it would make the room seem more open.

So... bye bye big high hearth.

Anyway, back to this picture, he used 5/8" cabinet grade plywood to encase the fireplace on both sides

...and more casing on the top using more 5/8" plywood.

{Another side note...we didn't like the 70's looking brick with the black and cream and red bricks, so to make it all look a little more uniform and aged, my husband mixed up some mortar and rubbed it over the bricks that would still be showing after the new mantle was finished.}

Here in this picture, you can see that he encased the existing  rectangular top part of the mantle with some primed fiberboard molding, added another piece of primed fiberboard right underneath it, and also added that piece on the very top that sticks out the farthest.

{I hope this is all making some sort of sense.  Like I've said before, I'm terrible at explaining how things go together like this.}

He added some more primed fiberboard on top of the plywood on the sides to chunk it up a bit, some trim molding to make things look nice and neat, and some casing molding just under the original top part of the mantle to add more depth and texture.

Then he added a couple of boxes on each side using a thin strip of molding.

Next came LOTS of sanding, caulking, and filling in nail holes. 

And then he painted it white using good old semi-gloss bright white paint from Walmart's Colorplace line.

And there we have it!

It's such an amazing transformation from what we started out with!

{Please just ignore all the cords and the DVD player sitting on top of the mantle.  Built-ins on either side of the fireplace are coming soon to hide all the cords, dvd/vhs players, movies, and more!}

It's so much fun to have all our stockings hanging from such a pretty fireplace this year.

Good work honey, you're the best!!!

{On a side note, I have a couple more Christmas time traditions to share with you tomorrow...if I can find the time!}

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

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