Our new house has a fireplace that really needs a face lift. It is the focal point in the living room so it is important that it makes a statement and blends in with our decor. We plan to paint the living room repose gray and we are installing a new laminate plank wood floor that will really give a more modern look. As I am getting my thoughts and ideas together, I thought I would walk you through what I am thinking for the fireplace makeover via photoshop mock ups.

Ideal Plan (Too expensive right now)

This fireplace is gas so we have some flexibility with rebuilding the framework. Ideally – if budget wasn’t a factor – we would build the fireplace up to the ceiling and brick the entire thing. Unfortunately, with all of our other expenses with this new house, we have decided to go a more budget-friendly route for the time being and maybe resurface this idea in a year or two.

Budget-Friendly Plan

Things we don’t like about the current fireplace:

• The mantle is too high so we don’t have enough room to mount our TV
• The tile and gold accents on the fireplace face are outdated for the modern look we are going for
• The shape of the mantel is too traditional for our taste

The Plans

Step 1: Lower the mantle

This will give us a few more inches above the fireplace to give our TV some “breathing room” when we mount it.

Step 2: Paint the gold

This will help modernize the look and update the face of the fireplace

Step 3: Paint the tile

Ideally, I would love to do brick veneers on the face of this fireplace but in order to save cost right now, this is a temporary solution. They have special paint that you can use on tile (people use it on their bathroom floors all the time) which should give us the more modern look we are going for.

Step 4: Paint the frame

This will brighten up the space a ton and make the fireplace feel larger!

Step 5: New mantle

By adding a boxed wood mantle, the space will feel more modern. We will have a darker wood plank flooring which will tie in nicely with the new flooring that we are installing.

I am so excited to see how it turns out! The great thing about this is that I can still brick the face of it (cover the tile with thin brick veneers) if we don’t like how it turns out! Happy DIYing!