Simple Fireplace Update

When I first moved into my new (old) home, I knew right away that something had to be done about the overwhelming blue in the living room. I don’t mind a little pop of blue here or there, but almost all of the trim, the doors, and fireplace were all painted blue. Luckily, the previous owner was kind enough to leave the white trim paint in the house when we moved in! That was all I really needed to make this fireplace match the home.

My home is a tudor style house that was built in 1926, so it is important to me to try to bring out and highlight the true tudor-style elements that are here and to not go too modern anywhere (if it doesn’t fit in with the original vibe of the house). The blue in the living room was what I sought out to change before anything else. I went straight to sanding down and painting all of the trim white so that it matched the rest of the house. After that, it was time to move on to the fireplace. Here is how I worked on it in steps.

Step One: Sand

The most tedious step of them all, especially because, at the time, I did not own a power sander yet. So that’s right, I sanded down the whole mantle by hand. Then I cleaned all of the dust off so that I could have a perfectly clean canvas to work with. I only sanded the mantle to scuff it up so that the new paint would adhere to it better.

Step Two: Paint

After a decent sanding and clean up, I went straight in with that leftover white paint. Now I understand that everyone is over millennials painting everything in their home white, and trust me, I love adding color and character when I can, but this was about making things match. Later on, if I want to really make a bigger update to this fireplace, I will, but right now I just want to be able to decorate my living room without having a large fireplace that doesn’t match any of my decor. After I painted my first coat it was pretty clear that it was going to need at least one more.

So, you guessed it, I let that dry then went right in with a second coat. After that second coat, I really hoped that it would be enough, but unfortunately it was all too obvious that it needed, yet again, another coat of paint. At this point I was dreading doing this a third time because it was a bit of a pain to paint all of the grooves in the mantel’s molding.

I was pretty tired and it was also getting late, so I decided to let it dry overnight, then tackle the third coat first thing in the morning.

After all of that hard work, I was pretty pleased with myself! However, I knew that the next step was going to be the hardest.

Step Three: Lime wash

Now I know this step technically isn’t a part of the fireplace, but because I really didn’t want white on white, I decided to paint the whole living room. But not just your average paint, I wanted to lime wash it. Now lime wash isn’t known for being a particularly easy paint to work with, I’m not saying that it’s harder than normal paint, it’s just different. It requires a lot of different brush strokes to show the movement and since I have very textured walls, I ended up having to use a lot more product than flat walls would need. I also had to use my own brush stroke technique in order to really get into all of the grooves of the wall, but I won’t bore you with my lime washing saga. I’ll stay focused on the main topic, updating this fireplace.

So after a few days of lime washing, and lime washing, and lime washing. We were finally getting somewhere!

Step Four: The Hearth

After days and days in a row of painting the mantel and then lime washing the walls, I decided to take a few days off to figure out what I wanted to do with the hearth. A part of me wanted to keep the tile the way it was, but sadly I just didn’t own anything that really matched that red. Also, since the fireplace is not currently in working order and mainly for decoration, it wouldn’t matter if I painted it. So that’s what I decided to do. Just more and more painting, that’s all that this project really comes down to in the end! Lots and lots of paint. I decided on a checkerboard pattern since I figured that would be easy enough with the way the tiles were laid and, well, I am a sucker for a good checkerboard pattern. I went to Home Depot and found the perfect creamy beige and espresso brown to finish the job. I also stocked up on more painter’s tape while I was at it since that was the next step I would need to make the perfect checkerboard pattern and not get any of the paint on the grout.

Taping the checkerboard pattern was a wee bit tedious, but painting it was a breeze. After I removed all of the paint I did have to touch up some areas that came off with the tape, but it was overall pretty quick! And there you have it! That is how I turned my old red, white, and blue fireplace, into a cozy fireplace fit for a Tudor! All it took was some, paint, paint, and more paint.

If you are interested in watching a video to see the transformation for yourself, you can watch it here!