I can’t believe I’ve waited a week or so before sharing this here on the blog with you guys. We made some MAJOR progress in our front living room on the fireplace. If you remember way back when we started the front living room makeover, the floors & the fireplace were the biggest challenges. After ripping out the wall & old fireplace mantel we discovered the old brick from the original house, but it had been ruined by marble being glued to it & sharpie writing all over it by previous contractors. So, we decided one day we may want to tackle that beast, but for now we wanted to put it back behind a wall & so we built up shiplap over it & placed a reclaimed mantel that we had in front of it. Then came the challenge of tiling the floor around the fireplace….
Let’s see where we began:
& some progress with paint…
& now today almost done…
It was our first tile job ever & boy did we learn A LOT! So, we chose [these tiles] from Home Depot. I asked on Instagram which ones to choose & these were for sure not the popular vote, but my heart was calling for these. I wanted more contrast than with a plain neutral tile & these just felt right for the time period for our home. They were more complicated to lay than a normal basic subway tile pattern, but totally worth it in the end. I honestly think that these tiles give kind of a cottage vibe mixed with the chippy wood & we all know that we love that. Jose will be doing an ENTIRE tile process & how we ddi it over on our farm blog, TheWhiteCottageFarm.Com this week. We chose to tile only the hearth on the floor around the fireplace so we extended that area to really make a statement since that was the only place of the fireplace area that we were tiling. We built out around the fireplace using wood & then tiled on top of that. When we were done laying all the tile we used shoe molding to wrap around the area that we tiled. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.. more details will be on our farm blog asap. You can see [HERE] how we painted around the fireplace & got rid of the old 80’s brass that just doesn’t fit in with our decor.
To some this may look done & to some it may look way not done [or however you say that], but all in all we need to do some caulking, trimming, flooring work, & lots of styling. But we have made so much progress in this front room & it now doesn’t feel like such a construction zone anymore which makes me so happy! What do you guys think of our tile job? Be sure to check TheWhiteCottageFarm.Com this week for Jose’s tile insight & some comments from me about our first experience tiling… It’s not for the weak hearted that’s for sure! We are still wanting to add windows to this space on each side of the fireplace so cross your fingers we can make that happen because wouldn’tt that just be epic? Thank you guys SO MUCH for stopping by my blog today & for encouraging us to keep sharing our fixer upper, DIY, home decor, & lifestyle here on the blog… it means the world to us! xx
