fireplace part one.

Let me just start off by admitting I said to myself at like one o'clock or something a couple Saturdays ago 'oh, I'll just knock this fireplace paneling out this afternoon.'

Uhh.

Yeah. No.

Two weeks later I am on day three. And ten hours later on this third day ... I finally finish, but only half-finished.

So it's somewhat embarrassing, but this is how the fireplace has looked since I ripped off the beadboard paneling about a month or two after moving in here four years ago -

So clearly I underestimated, well, how hard this project would be. I've already sworn way too much and I'm only half done. This is way harder than I ever imagined.

First thing to do was to build a frame on which to attach the paneling. Ugh. This is what was tough. Probably the hardest part - trying to attach 1x4 framing boards to an unsquare, lopsided old lath and plaster-covered fireplace. Ugh again. But after two days of nailing (and, yeah, swearing) I finally finished it -

Let me just say this whole thing has been all about drywall shims. Lots and lots of drywall shims. To make everything square, that is. Or at least try. Behind the framing. And again behind the final panels and slats to make sure everything was tight and square.

The other thing I of course had to do was prime all the wood. And do a lot of routing. A lot of routing -

I set the 5/8" bit to the depth (or, rather, height) of the thin plywood I picked up at Lowe's for something like $10 for a 4x8 sheet. The pieces of plywood would then slide into the router grooves when I started putting it together.

And lots of mitering. On the table saw and the chop saw. I wanted mitered corners, afterall. What I still love and appreciate about that Dewalt saw is how precise it is - the key being a tip I read a while back about miters: make sure to flip the saw 90º when mitering a corner instead of just flipping the wood around. That way if the saw's 45º is actually, say, 43.9º - if you just flip the wood the two cuts won't add up to 90º. But if you flip the whole saw, the other cut would be 46.1º and the two will fit perfectly together. So making sure to do that, the first corner looked beautiful -

and I was off to a good start. No carpenter am I, though.

I had to miter the long corner vertical slats on the table saw, but they came out looking pretty good, too (yes, surprisingly). Then - with lots (and lots) of meticulous cutting (i.e. back and forth to the saw I carried out to the front porch to shave off a sliver of an end to get each slat to squeeze into place and ensure a nice, square, tight fit) I started putting the first side together -

To get the vertical slat to contour to the wall, I used a stack of shims that molded to fit the slant of the wall and traced the outline on the wood, then free-cut it with a circ saw. The thin plywood then just slid in the router grooves -

Note the different depths of wood - that was key for me - using 1x stuff for the horizontal top and bottom pieces, then 1/2x stuff for the vertical slats and then the plywood paneling for a total of three different depths that add contrast when the light hits them. And so a cross-section looked like this -

And then ... the first side was finished -

It was sort of like doing a puzzle - the way I was building it meant each piece had to go in a certain way. Or rather, a certain order. Vertical slat. Then slide in the plywood. Then horizontal slot and slide in another piece of plywood. I made a mistake of putting in a second vertical slat before sliding in the plywood so had to take it off. Which wasn't easy - I was using my stapler and let me just say - those staples hold really, really (no - really) well.

Obligatory in-action shot of course -

And then ... and then two panels were done on the front -

Of course that beam isn't centered, either (hey, it's an old house). So I opted to make it look centered - uhh, I mean making each panel width unequal in order to place the middle vertical slat in the middle of the beam, which isn't in the middle of the fireplace (get it?). But that's where I had to stop. After ten hours. And probably another twelve at least between all the routing and priming and trying to install a square frame for nailing. Sheesh. An afternoon haha.

I'm not making any bets on how long it will be to finish it. At least a couple more days. Have to finish the other half of the paneling and then caulk the edges and paint it all. Then paint the fireplace bricks. Then install a slate hearth. We'll see. But despite it being really tough, it's (slowly, very slowly) turning out.