Southern Devotion: It's 007 Style!!

We have been working on our fireplace for what seems like forever. I was a bit over confident in our ability to knock out a full fireplace renovation in a month, which I mentioned here. I will try to not make this super wordy, and it's hard for me to give detailed instructions on what we did, when Brandon did almost all the work. I did, however, offer many words of encouragement. :)

The Original Fireplace

This isn't the best picture, but you can see that we have a door on one side of the fireplace and a huge window on the other. It was not easy to come up with a plan.

The first thing Brandon did was score, and gently remove the mantle. It was other the top huge, and way too high.

He then pried all the marble pieces off the wall, and cleaned the mess so it looked a little more manageable.

And this is what we lived with for several months. It was so intimidating for both of us, but especially for Brandon. This was WAY outside out realm of expertise. Not to mention that the walls weren't straight and the two sides weren't flush with the wall, so we knew whatever we did was not going to be even. So in the mean time, I decided that I could do something ... paint the inside. I know this isn't for everyone, but I really like the clean look that it gives the fireplace. Now we used regular latex primer and paint, because we are NOT planning on actually using our fireplace. If you are, please use heat resistant paint. It is very important to clean and vacuum your fireplace before painting it. I cleaned mine several times.

Brandon then filled some of the holes and gaps with concrete. After everything was as good as it was going to get, he put up the backer-board.

Then everything stayed like this for a couple months. This was an extremely slow process. It didn't realize it would be so difficult. So far, all the projects that have been done in the house have been extreme. Brandon really wanted to make sure he did it to the best of his ability. He really wanted to make sure I LOVED it.

Next he tiled and grouted. I LOVE our tile, and Brandon did it SOOO well.

At this point, I was beyond excited. I could see it in my mind, and knew it would look awesome. Brandon and I then had a several week discussion. We wanted to make sure that we agreed with what our design for the mantle would be, and that Brandon fully understood what I wanted, so he could then create it.

Here's the evolution of our mantle. This is all Brandon. Once we agreed on the design, he figured out all the dimensions and what would need to go where.