Rejuvenation Projects Blog

So after we got the lights and went all Hardcore with immediate installation, we waited a couple of months and then took on the daunting task of ripping out our fireplace.  For some reason, I had thought this would be a relatively easy task.  Even though we had discovered many “cover-ups” in the house, we had this odd faith-based assumption that the fireplace was neither a cover-up nor a badly done operation.

Ha!  So lets take a moment to recall the original before – and what it looked like when we got started:

Our old fireplace (now painted white!)

I never understood the grill things – I had thought they were useful (why put them in otherwise?) and was told that they were recent, but when we had a company come in and look at our fireplace/chimney they laughed.  Apparently it was a trend in the 70s, not entirely useful and obviously “recent” is in the eye of the beholder.

Did you notice the lights?  I love the style of the Glide – though picking finished from the web was tough.  I decided to go with a polished nickel cup finish, a bronze gilt body finish, and a 7″ ivory shade.  They coordinate perfectly with the Blairmont, I’m really happy with the overall look.   I picked this series because the stepping on the shades echoed perfectly all the wood molding in the house.  I’ve never seen anything quite like this series here in Ottawa, so I like that they set my home out in a neighborhood where most of the interior details look the same.

Okay, sorry!  Side-tracked by lighting.  So we got started on the mantle – I should say my hub started ripping it apart and I followed him around with a shop vac.

Stone facing on a brick base

We discovered that the stone was all attached to brick.  And cinder blocks.  I’m not really sure what I expected, to be honest…

All the stones are off - just the brick remains

Construction material shoved into the cavity behind the brick

We quickly discovered that behind the brick was a large cavity full of construction debris (nails, saw blades, mouse nests, 1977 newspapers).  I think at this point, we were starting to wonder if the project would get intimidating.

Off with the bricks and cinder blocks, it all weighed a ton

Demo completed

Of course, I dragged the new mantle in to make sure it would fit.

A shot of our old fireplace with the new mantle on stand-by

At this point, we clued into the idea of protecting our new light fixtures and realized the project was going to make an extremely large mess so we had cleared out a lot of the space.  Finally – with a little guidance and a couple of days work, the fireplace started to evolve quickly.