If you’ve seen some of my recent Instagram stories, you know that Ryan and I started to tackle our main floor renovation. We thought we would wait a little, but then reconsidered when we imagined how much harder it would be the closer we got to our due date. And, we were so excited to use our fireplace in the fall. So demo started on our living room and fireplace a couple of weeks ago! Here’s a reminder of what we started with.
Fireplace Before:
The original fireplace design was very…well let’s say mid 80’s style with a mirror surround and a big oak mantel. Gorgeous right?! What we like about it though is that it is wood burning and it has a little niche underneath – perfect for storing some wood. The carpet started off sort of yucky and, because of our dogs, became disgusting! So we had to say goodbye! What you can’t see in this photo: the horrible lighting and poor placement of the fixtures, along with all the popcorn ceiling.
The demo:
We started with the floors and fireplace surround. All the trim and baseboards came off and then we started to tackle the ceiling. A word of warning – a ceiling demo is so so messy. Even with poly up, the dust manages to seep through and cover everything!!! I found this to be way worse than expected.
Not going to lie, the dogs were a little heartbroken to see the carpet go. They loved to play on it! And barf on it lol (why do dogs insist on ignoring the hardwood and go straight for the carpet?!).
The Fireplace Design Inspiration:
After visiting a local tile showroom here in Edmonton (River City Tile – amazing!!!), I fell in love with their gorgeous cement fireplace surround on display. It was so clean, incredibly modern and a major statement. Even though it was out of our price range, I knew I needed something similar. So I started to search for more inspo and found some beautiful images of fireplace designs.
What I love about all of these fireplaces is their simplicity and minimalistic approach. There isn’t a lot of detail and yet they are stunning to me. There are no distracting mantels, televisions or even much in the way of artwork. I would have loved to just re-drywall our fireplace and paint it white like some of these above – very Scandinavian – but Ryan wasn’t quite on board with that and it wouldn’t have really worked as well with our living room configuration. A tile would have to be chosen! But we really needed the perfect one…
The Progress:
We completed the ceilings and added some amazing LED pot lights. Ryan splurged a little more on these particular ones but they practically disappear in the ceiling, which is great! We carried the same hardwood from upstairs down here and we’ve already done a coat of Chantilly Lace on the walls! My fave! Ryan stacked some birch logs underneath the fireplace to see what it could look like…and already it is transforming into a dreamy spot, don’t ya think?! The tile has been ordered from River City and should be in soon…stay tuned to see what we chose. After the fireplace, we have some work to do on the staircase, but all in due time!