Floor-to-Ceiling Fireplace

When we first saw our house, we thought the fireplace was ok, although we were sad that someone decided that painting it gray would be a good idea. It wasn't our favorite part of the house, but we had a sneaking suspicion that there might be stone underneath the drywall above the mantel. There was really no way to know without some demolition. A few weeks after moving in we finally removed the poorly installed crown molding from the living room so we could paint, so there were a few inches of drywall at the very top of the fireplace wall that we could cut away without being unable to replace the molding later and cover the hole. Nick got his sawzall out and cut away the tiniest few square inches of sheetrock...

...and we saw stone behind it! We were still uncertain of the condition of the stone, so we left it alone for a few more weeks. One night, Nick came home from work and was in a destructive kind of mood, so he just started hacking away (carefully) at the seams of the sheetrock, and when it was all said and done the entire wall was down within half an hour!

Whoever committed this fireplace crime didn't expect that wall to ever come down, as evidenced by the massive amount of glue they used to hold the sheetrock on.

So much better, even with glue and boards stuck all over it!

Now we have a lot of glue to continue scraping off and we are hoping we can use our wire brush attachment for our drill to remove as much of the soot from the top half and paint from the bottom half so they'll both look cleaner and newer. Even the crummy painted-white mantel looks nicer already just with that one change! I really can't imagine why anyone would ever make a decision like this, but clearly this house is full of bad ideas! Luckily we came along to rescue it from bad taste hell!

Chim-Chim-i-ney

We got our fireplace swept yesterday (so we can use it while we can since we only get about a month cumulatively per year) and while I was somewhat disappointed that a hipster showed up instead of a sooty charmer it did get me thinking more about covering up this ugly painted-stone behemoth with something I actually want to look at.

In looking at all of the options at Lowe's when we chose our floor tiles we both really gravitated toward this natural stone tile:

With some 18"x18" slate tiles on the hearth and a fancy wrought iron grate it will be perfect! And the Escape Gray paint we picked out for the living room will tie it all in perfectly. I'm not sure what we'll do about the gigantic blocky mantel (that someone painted white for a reason that is beyond me) but I am so excited about having an awesome fireplace!

Living Room Before Tour

One of the big selling points for the house was the living room! We know it needs a lot of work (giant mirrors, badly stained wood trim, laminate floors, ugh) but it's a great size and shape and has interesting features that we can make over to be totally awesome.

A whole wall of windows and doors! I do love French doors, and this house has three sets!

Corner fireplace and the dining nook.

We have no idea what to do with this mirror. Yikes.

Tall ceilings, yea! Dim-able track lighting, eh. SO MUCH LIGHT, yea!

The fireplace again, this time from the dining nook.