Before & After

I realized that I never did a follow up from this post. A few months ago I finally bought a mantel from craigslist. I had been looking for close to 6 months and finally found one that would have a pretty good fit, be easy to mount and not too expensive. Those were the three main things that were holding me up. Our box and surround are a weird size so hardly any of the mantels I found would work. The mantels that would work were mainly all super heavy concrete which we had no clue how to move let alone mount. Anyway my dad and I drove my round prego self to the middle of nowhere to pick it up. We tried haggling on the price a little but the guy wouldn't budge, I got it for $200, which is not a bad deal considering it is carved wood.

Before:


After:


Now the issue is that the surround is not as big as the mantel so you can see some brick. For now I may just paint the brick that it is still exposed black, but we want something more attractive. What I would like to do is have a hammered copper surround but I am not sure where to start on that search. There is also tile or just getting a bigger piece like the one that's there. Any advice from the peanut gallery?

Fireplace ideas

So I do really love our brick fireplace wall that separates the living room from the dining area. The only trouble is, I really have no idea what to do with it. It puzzles me. I know a few things are wrong. For example, the mantel is too high on the wall. It looks very awkward way up there all alone. Also, the color of the wood is all wrong because it has no contrast with the brick.

Secondly, we have the insert. At first I wasn't sold on the idea of having an insert because it takes away from the whole romantic notion of having open flame in the middle of your home. Also, lets face it, they are not very attractive. But when the home inspector did the inspection that insert was the one and only thing that he said was done perfectly and had no problems. There was no way I was going to go to all that effort to fix something that wasn't broken when we have a list a mile long of things that ARE broken. So the insert stays. Plus they are energy efficient and all that jazz.

Also, there is just so much brick! So much RED brick. Which is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But it presents another design problem of what to put on it and where.

I was browsing one of my favorite places to get home design inspiration - saucy dwellings - I saw this photo and fell in love.

So that started me on a mission to find an antique or faux-antique fireplace mantel. Which I have already found some leads on craigslist! I just have to determine the budget, measure the fireplace to get the size and figure out how to move and install what could basically be a huge block of cement.

I also am getting some ideas as to what I want to go above the fireplace, but I am keeping that under wraps for now.