It's no secret that I've always got a project going. Just about the time I finish one I've got another to follow up on. My latest project was something I undertook at probably the worst time. But now, it's done. It's over. And I'm happy with it.
When we moved into our rental we noticed the wood burner. Jerrel and I grew up with wood heat in the winter. We had hoped that we would be able to use it in the future. But that plan didn't pan out so we moved on. Also when we moved in I took mental notes of the things that I could change easily and cheaply since we didn't know if this was a long term home or not.
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| Almost forgot a before picture! |
That faux ugly brick? That was pretty dang high on the list. With the news of the no go on the wood burner we decided to get a small electric fireplace and create a cozy hearth. I use the word "we" loosely. I suggested and showed the husband what I would like (onsale even!) and Jerrel ordered it. He would have just left it alone. I could not.
Our kitchen-which is right off the dining room has faux brick as well and it's colors are in the tan family. My brain could not handle any more of this distracting high contrast brick. I craved cohesiveness. So while I toyed around with faux painting the brick so it had reds and browns I decided to just go with the tans to tie the two together.
So literally one day I had enough. We ordered the fireplace I wanted and I went to the basement and gathered paint. Between what was left in the basement when we moved in and a gallon I picked up for FREE in a reject pile at the General Store in town I had all I needed.
- I started out by painting the whole thing white. It looked so much better already.
- Then I mixed up my grout color using white and my reject paint and painted all the grout lines.
- Next I found a sponge and dipped my sponge in the grout color and the reject paint color. I started sponging away. I made sure my sponge wasn't too heavy with paint though.
- I dabbed and sponged until my sponge was empty and then started over. This technique made it easy to achieve a varied look.
- Taking a step back to look at the big picture every so often helped me make sure my finish was perfectly imperfect.
The finish product is great! The process was scary for a while, I realized it was quite the undertaking about a fourth of the way through. I just kept saying "It is really ugly. Like really ugly. It looks better already. Just keep painting. Just keep painting. Just keep painting, painting, painting. The bricks were dirty. It is really ugly..."
And then it was done and the fireplace came. We moved the wood burner to the garage and told it we were sorry. It seemed like a crime.
The day after Christmas my dining room looked like this. I about had a cornoary. The after Christmas mess mixed with this mess was too much.
I tried to be patient while the dynamic duo put the fireplace together.
My mom came over and helped me design the area. We hung my top door of a piano to finish the mantle/hearth look and finished off with my love grass wreath. I love that wreath.
Now my brain is much less cluttered. I have some cohesiveness in the two rooms and our dining room is nice and cozy. For the cost of the electric fireplace from Home Depot that can move with us someday we have a whole new look!
Fresh, clean, and cozy.
Blessings!
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