Fireplace Fun: Part One

I believe I'd mentioned wanting to put a faux fireplace in the blue room I've been working on, on the place where many moons ago, there once really was a chimney breast. I wanted to keep it similar enough to the original fireplace that's in my diningroom downstairs, but make sure it coordinated more toward the blue and cream theme I was using.

Here was what that area of the room looked like without furniture in it...

Because I couldn't fit an architectural salvage wooden fire surround from Construction Junction into my car, I found I could get flat-pack pieces from Lowes and then construct it into place. This meant the baseboard on the chimney wall was going to have to be removed...
That was my project last Sunday, and I was relieved it was easier than I'd thought it would be. I also started using tile glue, to adhere the tiles I'd gotten for inside the wooden surround. I was trying to keep it along the same lines as the fireplace downstairs. That tile is a speckled pale green. I was lucky enough to track down a speckled light blue, also at Lowes...

And at $4 for a square foot, the cost was terrific. I looked into getting repro Victorian tiles, and at $10 for a single six-inch tile, I just couldn't afford it. The Lowes tiles have the same effect and were much more in my budget!

Here you can see the partially tiled wall, and the fire surround accessories I was noodling around with...
Now, time to make Tollhouse cookies...
Or, um, grout the tile. The color of the grout is "vintage white." I liked it because it's not as stark, bright white as some...

Still looks like cookie dough, though. Or maybe I'm just really hungry.

Here's the fully-grouted wall!...

And now on to painting the fire surround and its wooden accessories...

This next part looks like nothing, but it ended up being the rough part. It involved getting the first bracket on the wall, to hook the wooden fire surround to...

Because underneath the wall plaster is the old brick chimney, I had to use a masonry drill bit, in order to drill the holes. This, of course, was not a part of the instructions of my fire surround kit, which assumed I'd be hooking it into drywall. So a consultation from a wonderful, helpful fellow at Home Depot earlier today, and a few of the right tools, set me straight.

And set the bracket straight, as well! I was so excited to have accomplished this, there was actually some dancing involved...
And three more brackets later... would you believe the fire surround actually fit?!

Another musical dance interlude! (Icould tell you I was kidding, but when it comes to home project success sometimes ya just gotta dance)...And before I quit for the day, I got the first two brackets on. These will support the mantle...

The mantle, and all of the fire surround accesories, however, will be for another day. I'm pretty happy with what I've gotten done in just a week, while only really tackling this after work and on the weekend.

So... the project continues! Wish me luck on the rest of it. I'll share with you what happens-- for good or bad!

• If you missed last Wednesday's post on Driving Away the Autumn Blues through some little household tricks, click here.

If not, well, perhaps I'll see your smiling faces this Wednesday. I wish I could promise you all Tollhouse Cookies, but the best I can do right now is grout...

Not so tasty.