Friday, March 25, 2011

Fireplace Remodel

Remember this fireplace? This lovely, lava rock, cob web catching eye sore? I hated it. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of a big cozy fireplace in our living room. I just hated how dark and dreary it was. Sometimes friends would come over and absolutely love the rock, but it had to go. Adios, sayonara, peace out!

Yesterday, on a whim, Colin and I decided it was finally time to get new flooring for the entire house. We've hated our carpet and wanted to get Pergo floors for a long time now. Thank to 2 great tax returns, we were able to get 1100 square feet of Havana Mahogany. It's a darker wood than we have in the kitchen/dining room. We had to get extra so one day when we decide to redo our kitchen, we'll have enough to fix the floors due to a changed layout. Back to the reason we are redoing the fireplace. To put in the flooring correctly we were going to have to rip out the lava rock beforehand so we cut butt the wood up to the fireplace without the lava rock in the way, and also so the falling debris didn't ruin the new floors.


You can see how much of a mess I made! And I was just about 1/2 way done here! Unbelievable how much dust there was. Ridiculous!

Even Duke was worried! Yuck!


Since I did this project solo while Colin was at work, I needed some extra man power. What did I come up with? An old computer chair and Rubbermaid container! Pretty darn smart, right? By using the rolling chair, I didn't have to carry the super heavy rocks all the way to the garbage can. I could just roll it! Pretty darn smart if you ask me! :)


The side done, right near the front door.



The front done! Next up - new stove! Now we just have to scrape the extra cement stuff off the brick. Then we'll be either putting drywall up with some natural stone or white wood with molding and natural stone. What do you think? Any suggestions?
You have NO idea how good it feels to get done! We have been absolutely dreading this project!

4 comments:

Abby said...

Whoa! What a mess! It's going to look so good once it's done! Yeah, glad you got a start on it!

The Swanson Family said...

wow! way to go strong lady!

Suzie said...

Wow, you are so ambitious!! Want to come help remodel my house?? There are SO many things I want done and we've done next to nothing since we bought our house 4 years ago ..

Kara and Colin said...

lol Suzie, you'd be ambitious too if you had this fireplace in your house! It smelled so bad, like old cigarette smoke. After that, I'm exhausted! Time for a couple weeks off. ;)