Corner Hearth Makeover
Working on this hearth has happened in very drawn-out stages. When we first bought the house, this little corner was in its original red brick color with brown and white shag carpet crawling up the base. I knew I wanted to whitewash it at some point, so I did that quickly after moving in.
In order to do that, I diluted some white latex paint with a bit of water, and just kept applying coats until I got the kind of coverage I was going for. I thought I would have to do more rubbing and dabbing of excess paint after each application in order to prevent an opaque look, but actually the brick sucked up SO much paint that I didn’t have to bother with too much frantic wiping. Rather, I had to do 3-4 coats just to even out the blotchiness and to get the look we have here. All in all, it was a pretty easy project! To anyone with a dated brick fireplace that they want to update, I say go for this! It’s definitely permanent (and therefore daunting), but it can be quite the budget-friendly transformation.
I also needed to trim out the base of the hearth. After we removed the carpet, it just revealed very rugged builder-grade wood that you couldn’t easily paint or stain. It wasn’t even a nice kind of “rustic” – it was hideous and needed to be covered entirely somehow. So we just added some spare beadboard and pieces of trim we already had in the house. It was hard to do mathematically, because the base of the hearth is actually an incomplete octagon, and so the corners aren’t standard 45 degree angles. Half of the reason this took forever to complete was my inability to figure out the angle and needing my husband to get out his protractor and do the math for me! Hah. It was actually more like a 24 degree angle. Once I knew that, I could cut and mount the trim myself. That part took a mere hour or two.
I also needed to DECORATE this space. It always stumped me as a potential decor spot, so I mostly just left it stark naked throughout the years.
I knew I wanted to cover those ugly Tetris blocks with a floating wooden shelf some day, and that’s where my husband really came to the rescue and built these beautiful wooden pieces for me. To cover the existing blocks, we simply built the shelves as hollow boxes that could slide right over the blocks, almost using them as additional supports. It turned out GREAT for our first carpentry project of this type. Now I have a perfect spot for year-round decor and the all-important Christmas stockings!
I wanted to fill the white space in even more, so I went antiquing and scored a couple great finds. I found this adorable antique kids’ chair for $29 that I knew could be a great stand for a planter. I also found this brass magazine rack that I decided to repurpose for merely decorative “wood storage” – because this is a coal burning stove that we’ve never had the coal on hand to actually use. 😀 I also found the antique kettle for $18 and just added some other on-hand items, like the books and candlesticks, into the mix. I love how cozy and collected-over-time it looks!
All in all, I’m so glad I finally devoted time to giving this focal area of our living room the attention it deserves. It’s been quite a transformation and I love the way it invites you into a space where we spend so much time.
