Fireplace Makeover

Though the fireplace wasn’t a huge remodel project, it sure was a fun one. A little bit of paint and a faux mantel completely changed this area! Don’t you think so?

BEFORE:

This is the before of the living room and mantel (before any of the remodel). It wasn’t in horrible condition, it just was really outdated.  (yikes..)

We first painted it white with masonry paint. Once the floors were changed. I didn’t really like the white, it just overpowered the entire room. So I painted over the white with the paint we have on the walls in the entire home and the name is Whisper White (from HomeDepot).

Here is what it looked like half white and half Whisper White. What do you think? (Left is white and the right is the color of our walls.)

And an up-close of that Whisper White. It is absolutely beautiful.

First, I played around with the stain colors. Our floors have a combination of gray and brown and it makes it really hard to choose something that is just perfect. 

Once we chose the stain color that we liked, my husband built the mantle. We used a 1”x10” board. Since pine is less expensive, we used pine for the sides, top and bottom of the maple. For the face of the mantle, we used maple wood. This is what it looked like before we added the face of it.

STAIN COLOR: We use the same stain combination for the entire house as we LOVE
how it looks. We did two coats of the Weathered Oak as we need some gray and just
one coat of the Early American.

STAIN COLOR: We use the same stain combination for the entire house as we LOVE how it looks. We did two coats of the Weathered Oak as we need some gray and just one coat of the Early American.

These are the options we played around with. We either placed the mantel on top of the brick, slightly below it, or completely covered it.

We ended up just placing it on top of the fireplace brick then Tim just used calking to fill in the gap, you’d never know there was gap.

The stain colors will be slightly different as pine has more yellow in it so keep that in mind, you’ll need to play around with the colors to get it where you want it to be.

Decor:

Decor options:

I played around with the different options, you can see below how things change. What would you have kept?

-These are the baskets we used from Target. We tried the smaller ones and the larger one and I think I like the larger more. This is the throw blanket. It’s so soft and modern.

–Mirror is also from Target by Magnolia, this 30” one here.

-These planters are my absolute favorite. They are a set of three from HomeDepot. Aren’t they just gorgeous?

-I got these candlesticks in three different sizes.

-This is the vase we tried adding there and the pampas grass in it. I’ve been looking for that perfect pampas grass and this is it. Not too dark and doesn’t look cheap, I’ll be getting more and adding it to different areas in the home.

Isn’t it just amazing how much a space can be transformed with just paint and a mantle.

Fondly, 

Valentina