Fireplace Facelift

One thing we love about our living room is our fireplace. Who doesn't love to cozy up to a nice fire on a cold evening?! It serves as the focal point in the room (although it is competing with our ginormous flat screen). Originally I planned on using natural stacked stone, but with a million other costly projects going on, I opted for a less expense look. It turns out that I actually like it and I'm not so sure I will go with the stacked stone later on. We will see.

Here is our before...a dirty dingy old red brick.


...And here is our after!

Our wall has that oh-so-popular 1960's wood paneling that was repainted white by the sellers but still distasteful to my aesthetic eye, so I kept the paneling for texture and warmed the room up with a natural beige paint color. The white paint used for the fireplace was left over from the sellers in our garage (score!) and matched the mantle. We found the fireplace screen and accessories at Target.

About that ginormous TV. I really did not want to hang the TV above the fireplace, however I really had no other logical place to hang it. If we had a living room and a family room, it would be a different story. Now I'm on mission to hide the hideous TV wires. The mantle candle holders also came from my old house. I purchased on clearance from KOHL's (double score!).


I've dreamt of a beach house my whole life, so I brought a bit of the ocean home to me. The glass/metal lantern came from my old house. I bought it at IKEA a couple of years ago. I added a cheap non scented pillar candle and a white starfish from Wal-mart.