Amazing Fireplace Transformation

This was our fireplace when we moved in to the 70's-tastic house. Even when we first walked in to view the house before buying, we knew it had to go QUICKLY. But this was not the best task to start with when we moved into the house. This fireplace was a HUGE undertaking and a lot more work than we originally thought. Basically, we wanted to cover up the ugly brick and build a mantle that would match our style. Sounds pretty straightforward, but it definitely wasn't!

If you want to see all of the horrible, but hilarious problems we went through, see this post.

We started out by building a mantle. The challenge was that we had that concrete slab in the middle of the wall that needed to be covered. The mantle had to be built around it so it would hide inside.

Instead of tearing out the brick, we covered the brick in drywall and then added durock in the area we wanted tile. By this time it was the middle of the winter and let's just say it was pretty cold working in a room with no cover on the fireplace! We had to start building fires when we needed things to dry or it would take forever! We tiled the hearth and area around the fireplace opening with a simple tan-colored tile to match the wall paint.

The next big challenge was how to add the tv, dvd player, cable box and all the wires without having stuff everywhere. I'll give Hubby all the credit on this as he was able to come up with a sneaky solution to this problem.

The solution: the room next to the family room is the laundry room and there was a little area of a closet that had no purpose. So we wired all of our component through the wall to these little shelves that Hubby built. Eventually, we'll redo the laundry room and make them pretty, but for now, this works great.

Here is our finished tv and mantle! As you can see, we also added crown moulding around the entire room and above the tv to give it a more finished look.


We have a remote that works through the wall so we can change channels with the cable box being in another room.


I love our tile choice. It looks great with the color of the wall and it's not too distracting from the mantle and tv.





Also, notice my initial fame on the right side that I made earlier in the year.
Go here for my tutorial.