You know those ‘never ending renovations’ I used to bang on about? Well they are still going, they are just at a somewhat less interesting and exciting stage at the moment so I’ve not bothered to bore you all with them… until today.
Today I need your help. I need your ideas and inspiration and general wisdom. I need to know what on earth to do with our fireplace.
So far we have (thankfully) a working wood burning fireplace which has a lovely grey tile hearth and has been plastered in… and that’s it. We need to do something about a surround and a mantel shelf.
This house is an old California Bungalow which was moved here from the suburbs before we bought the property. We’ve tried to make sure our addition and renovation were sympathetic to the original features of the house and we’ve also reused or kept as many original features as possible. But the original fireplace was removed from the house before it was transported (I guess it’s tricky to move a brick chimney intact!) and was never replaced. So we don’t know what the original fireplace looked like and I suspect our new one is not wide enough for a traditional surround anyway, but we’d still like to do something that is at least sympathetic to the old house… but what?
We could do all wood and paint it to match the house, or we could do a painted surround with a recycled stained wood mantel that would match our awesome wood slab kitchen bench. We could do make the surround ornate with scrolls or carved wood, or we could keep it really simple.
I just can’t decide which way to go, and given it is in the middle of our lounge room with the TV beside it and the couch in front of it, we are going to be starting at it a lot, so I kinda want to get it right.
And once we decided on mantel and surround then we need to figure out what to put on the mantel shelf? I think we have decided against hanging the TV above the fire place, so how to ‘style’ the mantel shelf is a whole other challenge!
So, oh wise blog readers, what do you think?
How should we style our fireplace?
when i had a fireplace, (it was an existing old one, with awesome sculpted mantle in France) I invested in ONE big painting with a decent frame and had only a few decorative objects on the mantle itself.
Shame the tv has to be on the side of it but I understand you can’t chose these things sometimes..
i really have no ideas, but just wanted to say im totally jealous as i love fireplaces!!! hope you can find the right ‘look’!
Young House Love did there recent fireplace reno with marble tile and it looked great … maybe just me but it screams old/new to me! Maybe frame it with some minimalist marble tile with grey in it to match the hearth??
I like plain, plain, plain when it comes to fireplaces and mantles. That way you can decorate the shelf with whatever takes your fancy (so, yes, you need a shelf!) x
I’d say plain plain plain too…with a shelf for ever changing decoration, sometimes a miror, kid’s art etc…
But the best thing you can do is indeed remove the TV…
Pickle it. But you’ve probably finished. How did it turn out. I am in the same spot. The unit is in, just not sure what to do.