Fireplace Time Machine: The Beginning

This past summer, the family and I moved into new digs. For reasons more meandering than any sane human would find interesting, the new house quickly began to be referred to as The Castro. The Castro is a lovely little fixer-upper, a veritable smorgasbord of projects just waiting to be tackled.

Before moving in, we changed out shutters, ripped up carpets, changed the living room/dining room wall color from Shitty Mint Green to Everybody's Doing It Now Grey (I have seen Le Coleur du Jour referred to as many things. "Greige" is the one that makes me the most stabby. Being twelve seconds ahead of trendy is exhausting) and peeled out wallpaper that made The Seventies upchuck into its proverbial (presumably macrame) handbag. The one really glaring artifact from owners past that I just could not figure out how to work around was the living room fireplace.

Full disclosure: the house we moved into was passed on to me via family channels. Long ago, it belonged to my great aunt. My parents and I lived there all during my high school and a few college years. After my dad died and my step-mother moved into her recently departed mother's home, it fell into my lap. There are A LOT of things that need done to this house. On a scale of one to turn-key, this house was a negative forty-three when we first got started.

Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, I can say I have many fond memories that occurred around this fireplace. That being said, the fireplace was dated then and back then, I had to be careful to keep my bangs away from the open fireplace because there was a real danger that my White Rain saturated bangs could spontaneously combust (I get misty-eyed during VH1 Duran Duran retrospectives, hint, HINT - old blogger feels old).

The fireplace has been a design point of contention ever since we started fixer-upper-ing. It was a visual ALL STOP for me. I could envision my gorgeous neutral grey walls with beautiful framed artwork and crafts hanging throughout the living room and dining room; but the moment I'd try to think about what to do with the fireplace, my brain went all staticky. At first, I thought it was the mantel. It was so rustic. I could certainly see how it would easily anchor a design scheme that was more Provincial or Shabby Chic or Primitive; but we're a bit more linear and minimal in The Castro. Then I thought it was the sandstone - a bit too warm for our neutral living room. Maybe it was the brass.  I really am not fond of brass for fixtures, but for now, we have a house chock-a-block full of brass doorknobs and such. I poked around Pinterest for ages, searching for magic non-toxic stone-cleaning solutions and pinning dozens of different mantel revamps. I looked at a lot of faux mantels, to see how to incorporate lumber and crown molding to create what is basically fancy wood boxes.

Then I found this:

I showed the Mister and he didn't hate the idea of white-washing the fireplace. A glowing endorsement if I ever heard one. We talked through the differences between our fireplace and the blog project. I didn't see any reason why I couldn't finish this project in a weekend. 

I went to bed Friday Night with a sense of purpose.

Saturday morning, I woke with the sun little dog who desperately needed to be let out to pee. Before there were children camped out in front of cartoons, I was digging through our closet that holds tool boxes and mostly empty paint buckets - the things we need close at hand as we drag our home kicking and screaming into this millennium. There was a little back-pedaling on the Mister's part; he was uneasy about the permanence of painting the stone, but my mind was set. I found a paintbrush, some rags and a mostly empty gallon of white semi-gloss latex paint (leftover from painting the bathroom). If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say there was a quarter of a gallon (a quart for those of you running out to buy supplies) of paint left in the bucket.

In a disposable plastic bowl, I mixed 6-8 ounces of the paint with an equal measure of water and mixed the two well. I did not put down a drop cloth or tape off the wall and floor around the stone and hearth - if I had it to do over again, I would; and I highly recommend that you do.  The watered down paint is very spatter-y/splash-y/drippy and when dealing with a the rough surface of the sandstone, there were many paint spatters to be cleaned up, and some that will be with us until we paint the living room again.

After painting a few of the uppermost stones, I grabbed a rag and dabbed at the wet paint (according to the blog's instructions). I didn't like the look that much and it seemed like the sandstone was sucking up enough of the paint that it seemed like the effect would be subtle enough to keep both the Mister and I happy. I made quick work of covering the rough rock with the thin paint. After I covered the stone and hearth, there were a few individual stones that looked lighter than some of the others so I loaded the brush with paint then squeezed it out into one of my rags and did a quick touch up with my "dry" brush.

I called our friendly neighborhood hardware store to make sure they carried the high temp paint I needed to cover the brass (being a smaller hardware store where a good 40-50% of the stock is on shelves behind the counter, I like to call ahead, JIC). They did, so I rallied the troops and while the whitewashing dried we headed out to hit the used record store, hardware store and a couple flea markets and junk shops. On our way home from the flea market, we missed the left at Albuquerque and a twenty minute smile drive turned into a two-hour detour.

When we finally made it home I was ready to get back to my project. I masked off the glass of the fire doors and covered the rest of the fireplace (and the walls a good 5 feet around in all directions) in craft paper.

I lightly sanded the surface of the brass with a fine-grit (220) sandpaper to give the paint some "tooth" to grab onto then wiped it down with a lightly dampened rag to get rid of any dust. The Mister got super tight about the spray painting process, so I sent him out on a junk food run. I followed the instructions on the can and made sure to work in quick, light layers of paint. By the time my Mister got back, there wasn't so much as a hint remaining of the brass doors. I let the spray paint dry for a bit while I NOMmed, then pulled away the parts of the paper that covered the mantelpiece. NOTE: I forgot to use/buy a dust mask. Please don't repeat that mistake. I'm still blowing grey boogers.

I grabbed the 100 grit sandpaper and attacked the mantel. One of the first things I need to do here in the near future is buy a sanding block. Friction = heat; sandpaper gets hot! Luckily, I realized I could not nor did I want to strip away all of the dark finish on the wood. So I just worked on getting the wood ready to paint. On the mantel, I used the white semi gloss at full concentration. I considered just doing a whitewash, but because of all the scratches and imperfections in the wood, I would have needed a belt sander to get the wood ready for that sort of finish. Also, it was getting late and I was getting a little loopy. Once I got the mantel coated, I decided it was time to call it quits for the night. I had a full day ahead of me (bookbinding prep with my Souster and brunch with the fam at my aunt's house) and I need my beauty rest.

When I rolled out of bed Sunday morning it was still dark.  I threw one more coat onto the mantel and then started peeling off all the paper and tape. I was SOOO pleased with the results!

Now, instead of being stymied by my fireplace, I'm inspired! I have a few other projects in mind to decorate the mantel and hearth, so don't be surprised by a few more hearth-focused blogs in the near future.

Supplies:

• $6 - 1 quart white semi gloss latex paint 
• $8 - High temperature spray paint
• $4 - Eco drop paper drop cloth
• $3 - painter's masking tape
• $3 - 2" paint brush