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We finished Part 1 of our first project of 2018, the fireplace & mantel revamp! To see our inspiration and where we are headed for the whole project, see my first post here.
So we ended up spitting this project in to manageable sections to not feel so overwhelmed and it has helped us a bunch! We already feel so accomplished even though the entire project isn't finished yet.
Here are some before & after's (so far) as well as the steps we took to get to where we are today!
Before
During
We suspected that we had some water damage on this wall because it was bubbling up in some areas. So before we could start making anything look prettier, we had to make things look a lot worse. We opened up part of the wall to see what was going on. Luckily, it was water damage from years past and we had already taken care of the source (the chimney was leaking when we first bought the house and we fixed that right away). So everything looked fine!
Our walls are not flat at all so we used some (a lot) of spackle to flatten out the wall as best we could before drywalling.
After drywall
After paint
After we got the wall in working condition, it was time to start on the fun part, the fireplace!
Since our wall was still not perfectly flat, and we were tiling over brick, we let a layer of tile mortar dry over the surface before actually laying any tile. It helped make the surface all one level so that our tiles laid flat.
Next, we put up our tile! We started on the top section to ensure it was centered and as perfect as we could get it as this is the focal point of the tile and would be the most noticeable if something was off. Fighting gravity was hard! But after we laid each tile, we taped it to the wall to ensure it didn't slip or droop.
After we let the top section dry, we finished up the vertical sections and grouted the whole thing. Just like that, the tile was done!
Because our wall was so uneven and because we are lazy and didn't want to cut our super small tiles even smaller, we put up trim pieces around the fireplace. I like how unique it is and how easy of a fix it was!
For the mantel, we created a floating shelf and hung it directly above the tile. Here is a similar tutorial we followed to make the shelf.
Also, we weren't able to completely hide our cords (because we couldn't drill a hole into our wall because of the fireplace) but I am still super happy with how minimal they look.
After
I am so happy with how it is coming together so far and cannot wait to get the benches in place soon!