A Fireplace Update (that only cost us 12 bucks!)

Happy Monday Friends!  How was your weekend? We had a happy weekend full of working on the house.  We took a break Saturday night and visited some friends (who also have a new house...and a big wedding coming up).  And Sunday we were back at Lowe's grabbing some more supplies...

We've been painting fiends since we purchased this house.  I bet you all wish you would've purchased stock of Benjamin Moore (if you noticed a peak in their profits, it's all because of a little ranch in Rochester Hills).  I'm beginning to think the paint under my fingernails will be permanent.

Paint is, in my opinion, the easiest and cheapest way to update any room.  Or in this case, any fireplace.

We were ecstatic to have a real fireplace.  Especially after having to fake it in the last house. 

True story - the new owner of my house thought that my mantle and chalkboard rendition was real.  She mentioned that the inspector couldn't find the opening to inspect the chimney.  Haha... well at least we fooled someone :)   

Our new fireplace has a working gas line, so we can easily (and cleanly) have a fire every night if we so please.  Although the gas log set is older, it's in good condition, with the exception of a little kink in the gas line.  We plan on repairing the gas line in the future since we don't really want to mess with gas (or a possible leakage).

Giving the walls and ceiling a fresh coat of paint took us one step closer to our goal of updating this room.  But the purple-tinted, gray paint on the mantle (and trim) wasn't doing the room any favors.

The original paint was the same color as the fireplace.  Even the new coat is a little grayish and making the fireplace the 'Where's Waldo' in the room.  It took me a full day to paint and clean it up, but only at the expense of $12!

We wanted the fireplace to be the focal point.  I love a clean, crisp finish so we chose to paint it the same color as the trim (Benjamin Moore Simply White in Semi-Gloss), which we already had on hand.

In order to get it bright white, I had to prep it with 2 coats of primer.  I used the same primer we were using on the walls and ceilings (since we had plenty of it).  I painted the primer over the exterior bricks just to brighten it up temporarily.  We plan on doing something with those bricks in the future, and the primed look will give us a quick fix until we make that jump on tile or settle on a paint color.

The mantle wasn't the only dingy part of this fireplace.  The interior had become a breeding ground for spiders over the 5 months the house sat vacant.  Did you know that spiders are actually attracted to the Mercaptan (the chemical added to natural gas to give it the rotten egg smell)? So if the pilot is kept running, you'll be the favorite of all the local spiders.  Maybe it's the mercaptan, or maybe it was the vacant house, but this pit was the local dive bar (in spider terms).

The logs were dusty and sooty, and the lava rocks were covered in spiderwebs and dust.  It all needed to be cleaned.  I removed the logs, set them on newspaper, and vacuumed the ceramic logs until they were spot free. Then I scooped up all the lava rocks and dumped them in a bucket.  I washed the rocks in the bucket with hot water and a drop of dawn soap.  Then rinsed them until the water ran clear.  I laid the rocks out overnight to allow them to dry and then spread them back into place around the logs.

In the meantime, I vacuumed out the interior of the fireplace to remove any loose soot, dust and spiderwebs. We wanted a cleaner look for the inside of the pit, so we opted to paint it black (which will mask soot).  We had to purchase a quart of High Heat paint (since this is a working fireplace, regular paint isn't a good idea).  The cost was around $12.  And we have plenty left over since I only needed to paint 2 coats to get good coverage.

While I waited for the interior enamel to dry, I finished up the mantel.  Two coats of primer and two coats of semi-gloss paint and the gray was finally gone. 

The hearth of the fireplace is the same (but a little cleaner).  We plan to update the slate down the road,  (we're still tossing around a few ideas), so this isn't the last you've seen of fireplace updates.

The house came with the fire screen seen above.  We don't know what we'll do to keep dogs (and kids) out of the area just yet, but the screen seems to be doing the trick right now.  I had some leftover gold spray paint that moved with us, and I used the remainder of the can to update the screen.  

So, there you have it.  A quick update to the fireplace that amps up the style, and didn't break the bank.

The fire usually only gets lit when we have guests over, but just knowing that I can curl up next to a real flame makes me even more in love with our new digs.



Mary