Finishing the Fireplace, Part 1

Oh man, this fireplace project may actually becoming close to completion.

Remember this?

Oh yeah, it has definitely looked like that for months. It’s not that I wasn’t working on it at all, but I was partaking in the tedious job of applying layers of drywall mud to the surrounding wall, trying to make everything look smooth and not patchy. I’m no expert mudder, so it took a while and I hated every minute of it. :)

Then I did not feel like dragging out priming and painting supplies for such a small paint job.

But I finally did it!

First the primer. I used Zinsser’s FastPrime.

Then the paint.  I bought another gallon of Benjamin Moore’s Sail Cloth to match the existing living room paint.

I was so excited that I went right out to buy materials for the mantel!

Little did I realize what a project that would become.

I had always planned to build the surround myself, since it’s relatively simple and our fireplace is sitting up higher than an average fireplace so most kits wouldn’t really cut it. But I did plan on buying a pre-made mantel shelf kit at Menards.

Luckily, while I was at Menards, I thought to call Brandon to double check my measurements before I bought anything.

And yup. It turned out that the 6’ mantel kit I planned on buying was an inch too long for the wall. I guess once my layers and layers of mud went up, my measurements ended up being off. Womp womp. The other mantel kit available was only 5’ long, which would end up being 2 inches too short to span my tile. Double womp womp.

I panicked for a minute. Then I looked closely at the mantel kit and some of the other fireplace displays at Menards, and thought, I can just build this myself. I’m no woodworker, but whatever. What else was I gonna do?

So, here’s what I bought: 2 – 8’ sections of this decorative (fluted?) MDF trim, and a select grade 1” x 8” x 6’ board for the surround; and a select grade 1” x 4” x 6’ board, a select grade 1” x 8” x 6’ board, and an 8’ piece of pine crown molding for the mantel shelf.  I also got a couple different tubes of construction adhesive – something I don’t often use, but I figured would come in handy for this project.

What’s awesome is that all the materials for the surround and mantel cost around $75, (including my construction adhesive) which is less than just the mantel shelf kit which started for around $100 with the surround materials costing another $35 or so.

Boy, was I excited! Stay tuned for the rest of the project!