#39: Resurface Fireplace

Woo-hoo!  I'm SO glad this one is done!! 

This may be one of my favorite things we've done to the house so far.   Trevor had always talked about putting a big flat-screen above the fireplace and I always thought that seemed like a lot of money to spend on a TV...especially when we don't even have cable!  Then I started thinking about it more, and realized it will make the layout of our living room so much better to be able to get rid of the armoire we had at the time.  No matter what, I knew I wanted to cover up the brick on the fireplace and bring everything more up-to-date. 

With the baby coming soon and Trevor not being too sure he could design a fireplace surround that we liked, we went ahead and decided to hire most of this project out.  His cousin's husband Matt built the surround and one of his contractors did the tile.  Trevor painted the drywall, the fireplace surround, and the fireplace insert.  Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself...

Here's the "Before" Picture after Trevor knocked down the old "mantle" (more like a piece of wood).  The tape was from him trying to figure out what size of TV we could fit up there after we put up crown molding.

Here it is after Matt built the surround and put up the 2x4's for behind the drywall.  A hole was drilled through these 2x4's and a pipe was run out to the side to the right cabinet so that we could run the TV cables behind the drywall to hide them.

With the drywall up and all the nail holes patched...

Trevor painting the drywall.

All painted!

We didn't want to pay the money to buy a new fireplace insert, but didn't like the gold on the one we had.  We decided to go ahead and try some high-heat spray paint and paint it black.  We figured worst case scenario it wouldn't work and we would have to go ahead and buy a new one.  Here it is before we spray painted it.

After the surround was painted white and the insert painted black...

Trevor's co-worker Michael came over and helped install the new 50" TV...

And finally, the tile was all laid and grouted!

Doesn't it look really good?!?  I think it just totally changed the whole feel of the room.  The only thing we have left to do is put the crown molding up around the room.  (That's why there's some wood ripped off around the top of the cabinets.)

Trevor just came by and asked if I didn't have an even older "before" picture.  We found the realtor CD from when we bought the house and here's what we found!  I just had to do them right next to each other to show what a difference.   Here's all we've done since we moved in:

1. Replaced carpet
2. Tore down beams on ceiling
3. Scraped popcorn ceiling
4. Sprayed on a new textured ceiling
5. Refinished the walls so they don't have a weird texture
6. Painted the walls tan
7. Tiled the floor from the door to the garage to the back door
8. Painted cabinets white
9. Refinished fireplace

What a change, huh?!?!