Fireplace Makeovers!!! Share your own fireplace makeovers in this thread, so others can get inspired!!
This is what we've been calling the Jenga Fireplace. 1968 original brick fireplace with odd stepped out brick on top. Painted it gray for a temp fix, then the final project last week. We covered the brick in different size pieces of poplar, some jut out in the stacked wood puzzle. Made a concrete slab for hearth and then used one wide board of poplar on bottom surround.
(please excuse christmas clutter) :)
(please excuse christmas clutter) :)
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2. Thanks bob! :)
3. Judy judy judy...Just oiled it a little for now. Keeping more of the natural color. Poor santa...yes he's still there in the living room, whistling, snoring and his stomach goes up and down like he's breathing! I keep moving him under the tree and then when I get home he has been moved by some mysterious elves! It's a battle! HA!
I've added photos of a strong contender for the ugly fireplace award. While preparing this town home for sale, the homeowner allowed me, her real estate broker & my contractor husband to give it a facelift.
Have you considered just painting the brick itself? It will totally change the room. Look up painted brick fireplaces in the photo section. There are a lot of them and can totally change the look. Or look-up white-washing a fireplace. That can look good as well.
You can then beef up the mantle making it visually heavier to balance all the brick. You can wrap it with wood that is left rustic or wrap it with moulding painted for a more traditional feel.
The alcove where you have the Dura flame logs would look a whole lot better if you actually stored nicely cut to length firewood. As for the Brass fireplace screen it does jump out at you. If you're on a tight budget, you can find some heat resistant paint and hope to make the brass disappear. Better still would be to find a smaller, different one to fit inside the fireplace opening rather than the one you have that larger than the opening and is installed on the face of the fireplace.
I redid the tile, which I love, and had the bottom tier clad in wood, but those top two tiers are not an asset.. It is just drywall with rounded corners/edges. I didn't want to box them in too, so all I could think of at the time was papering them with a faux leather.
Any suggestions???
At first glance, making the "stepped area" a dark color by papering it in faux leather... you've added "weight" to the top of the fireplace mantle area which to me, is not the best solution. You also have
a lot going on there, between the stepped over mantle area, angled stair railing & handrails and color changes.
If you think the two additional tiers do not serve any purpose or function, you could remove them/cut them back to the vertical boxed in chimney and complete the drywall repair to the stairwell wall and the base of the vertical chimney. You could then fill in the horizontal area between your wood mantle and the chimney with more oak veneered plywood (that appears to be the material you have used). I don't think it will be difficult to tie in the new oak plywood to what you already have.
You will leave a large flat area for display but I would be cautious on the size/quantity of items displayed.
Another option would be to continue the middle tier up and box in the top tier so that there would just be one tier above your mantle, reaching up to to the flat handrail on your stair way. I would also suggest you have the drywall finished with square corners, like the rest of the drywall I see in the pictures. I noticed stepped area is the only one with rounded corners and one more reason why it just doesn't look "right". I would then paint the entire dry-walled area the same as your wall color. It might seem strange to combine the top two tiers into one larger tier, but I think it will give a good transition between the fireplace and the wall/stairway and would serve to simplify the look.
My first inclination is to remove the top tier so that more of the wall with the handrail shows. I will remove the faux leather paper. I can't paint the new section of drywall the same Dijon gold color because it doesn't exist anymore, so I can try for a computer match, but it won't be exact. I don't think I want more of the oak...
There is also a rounded edge on the display shelf in the stairwell, but I don't want to start ripping out more drywall just to get rid of the rounded edge.