New Fireplace

Although, we've been up to a lot at the house lately, one of my favorite projects is our new fireplace and mantle. The existing mantle and surround were pretty insubstantial and needed a facelift. In addition, the old tile was cracked and crumbling off.

First, we pulled off the old mantle and I chipped off the existing tile.

After that, Danny and Tom started designing the new mantle and surround. However, once he did a little research, Danny discovered, there are a lot of rules when it comes to the design of a fireplace with regards to building code. We discovered that we needed to have at least 8 inches of non-combustible materials before the wood part of the surround could start. Because we are limited on the width of the fireplace because of the built in shelves, we realized that in order to have a fireplace with the design we wanted, we needed to have our firebox made smaller. So, we brought a mason to add two layers of brick around the sides so that we had more room to work with.

Danny's cardboard mockup

Tom's design

Here you can see the new layer of bricks that was added. He also had to replace 17 bricks in the back that were crumbling/deteriorating. Here you can also see the start to the mantle and surround

Finished mantle and surround

Painted white to match

New tiles

All done!

Well, mostly. We are still missing a few pieces, but it's done for now. I honestly doubt we will use it the rest of this winter, but it is ready to go for next winter. We need to add a piece of trim to finish the surround and obviously need a screen of some sort, but I'm really excited about how it turned out. One thing I love about these pictures is that you can see the other progress that was being made on the room as Danny and Tom were working on this.