Fireplace Makeover -One Room Challenge Week 4

Easy Fireplace Makeover -how to remove a dated wooden decal, paint out your brass and modernize your builder basic fireplace.

Today I’m sharing with you my Fireplace Makeover, and all I can say as I enjoy it now is why didn’t I do this sooner?

It’s Week 4 of the One Room Challenge, hosted by Calling It Home where bloggers make over one room of their homes in six weeks.  We’re nearing the end.  If you need to catch up you can check out my previous weeks here:

• One Room Challenge Living Room and Eating Area Plans and Inspiration
• Expert Tips On DIY Shiplap -Week Three
• DIY Macrame and Fringe Pillows -Week Five
• Rustic Scandinavian Living Room and Eating Area Reveal -Week Six

The Fireplace Makeover Before

You may remember how it looked before.  It matched the hardwood colour and the stairway beside it, so it worked in Maple.  The thing I always hated about it most was that wooden decal on the front.  It bugged me from the beginning and I always intended to remove it.  I even asked someone to help me years ago.  Although it was maybe 5 years ago, so we’d lived in the house 5 years already and the woodworking friend said that the wood around it had faded from the sun, so there would always be a spot showing where it had been.  I knew then we should go ahead and remove it but he convinced me it would look worse.

Removing the Wood Decal

With the One Room Challenge I knew I had to finally get it off.  I took advantage of my woodworker brother-in-law Shaun working on the shiplap –read all about that here if you missed it, and asked him to remove it for me.  I had visions of trying myself and making it worse by marking up the wood around it.  He popped it off in a matter of seconds.  He used a small putty knife to get underneath it, and pry it off.

It came off all in one piece.  He then carefully pulled out the four finishing nails that had held it in place.

I sanded it down and debated whether to refinish the one panel where it had been removed, or paint the whole fireplace white.  I never minded the wood, and it did match the rest of the wood floors and stairs.  But, all the inspiration pics of Scandinavian living rooms seemed to have white fireplaces, and in the end I decided to go for it.

Painting The Wood

I thought I was being a good, responsible, non-lazy diy-er by taping out the fireplace before I painted it.  It is the same colour as the walls -JoJo Whitewash by Para, but the walls are eggshell finish and I used the semi-gloss on the fireplace.  I wished I’d never taped it along the walls, because although I thought I’d done it really carefully, it was a little too close, and left a thin strip of wood showing between the white of the shiplap and the new white of the fireplace.  And, as I peeled off the tape, the paint was peeling off too!

What can I say, I’m a learner.  So, I give myself permission to make silly mistakes, and learn from them.  Hopefully you can benefit from my errors if you’re about to do yours, haha.  I used a utility knife to carefully cut the edge of the tape and paint so that it won’t peel off the paint as I removed the tape.  The next morning I used a little artist brush and fixed up my edges.  No big deal -all’s well that ends well.

Painting The Brass

The other big change is that I painted out the brass.  I swear from the time we moved in I meant to get around to this job and it took ten years.  Do you have any little projects like that at your house?  It looks sooo much better, my first thought when I put the painted grill back on was why didn’t I do this years ago?  Oh well, it’s done now and I love it.

It was super simple to do.  I picked up some matte bbq spray paint -it’s specifically for surfaces that get hot, so perfect for this job.  I removed the brass grills, they just pop off and spray painted them in the garage.   I gave the front and back several light coats, making sure not to go too heavy and cause the paint to run.  When they were all dry I popped them back on -easy peasy.

So Much Better

Just a few inexpensive and quick changes and what a difference it makes!  If you have a builders fireplace and hate the wood decal and brass now you see how quick and easy it is to update it to something a bit more modern and clean lined.  I’m so glad I finally did mine.

 

Thanks so much for following along on this redecorating adventure with me, you can see lots more behind the scenes and sneak peeks over on Instagram.  Also, be sure to check out all the other One Room Challenge guest participants progress this week.

With an easy fireplace makeover, life really is a party!