a quick (baby) fix.

Years ago (seven, apparently) I built a paneled wall to enclose the upper part of our chimney (here and here).

Fast-forward to a few months ago, and our Little started crawling, which was quickly followed by the getting-into-everything stage. Daddy needed to keep him out of the fireplace. Enter: scrap wood (various scraps of plywood and 1x lumber), table saw, 12" planer, and wood glue.

After a few hours of work, I had something that matched the paneling -

Boom. Problem solved.

fireplace and hearth finally finished.

So I had a deadline to finish the fireplace by Christmas. I don't know why - I guess I had it in my head it is sort of a center-piece for the holiday and so wanted it finished. Or maybe I just wanted it finished.

First I had to tear off the plywood subflooring whoever put in that raised the ceramic tiles they had installed (but never grouted - it was one of the things they literally froze and stopped doing as soon as I put in an offer on this little house) above the level of the wood floor. I never understood that. So I ripped it out. Which revealed the original clay hearth and fir floor -

The fir flooring was slightly lower than the clay hearth so time to mix up some Presto Patch -

I've used to level flooring in the past (in the guest bath to even it out with the kitchen subfloor before installing tile way back when) and had some leftover -

The thing that took the longest - maybe surprisingly, maybe not - was choosing the tiles to place and the pattern to use. I needed ten and had maybe fourteen or so - some were more grey than others or had less orange so I tried to get them to all look as close as possible. I love love love slate and how each tile is different but since it was such a small area (maybe eight square feet or so) I wanted less irregularities between the ten tiles I had to place. Over a larger area the irregularities would have seemed less - well - obvious I guess. Or so went my thinking.

But after a bit of time I had a pattern figured out and headed out to the garage to break out the $20-garage-sale-find tile saw to cut the slate -

Then mix up some leftover thinset I had from when I tiled the shower in the guest bath a couple years back and set everything in place -

While it set I switched gears to finish trimming my bedroom closet. Fit the baseboards in perfectly - and finally realized that if you don't have to use a hammer to wedge trim to fit you cut it too short ...

(like here I'd hit that scrap 1x4 on one corner a few times, then slide it over to the other corner and tap a bit, then back - and forth - and back - and forth - until it was firmly wedged in place). Then I cut out the threshold and finished off the 'step' into the closet -

And the closet was finished -

Then back to the hearth. And time to grout. I thankfully had the foresight to read up on grouting slate beforehand and got the little tip to pre-seal slate - since it's so porous. Without presealing the tile I guess it just soaks up the grout and it becomes nearly impossible to get the grout off the tile. And another tip to use a frosting-like applicator bag (frosting as in cake frosting - tapered to a point on one end so you can squeeze out the grout directly into the space between the tiles) - which I just happened to have gotten at some garage sale years ago probably with most of my other tiling and grouting tools.

I have to say even after all that - getting grout off slate is next to impossible. Ugh. I was admittedly glad I was only doing eight square feet even though I'd love to have a complete slate floor in my kitchen and back in the laundry room. I'd have to test some sealers on scrap tiles first to try to minimize the extreme work required to get the grout off the tile.

But after some time on my hands and knees with a toothbrush and half vinegar-half water solution that did work quite well to get all the grout haze off the tile (the toothbrush was used to try to scrub the grout from all the crevasses and unevenness of the slate) I got most of it off -

And after touching up some spots on the fireplace that got scratched while installing the slate (I used Benjamin Moore hc-104 copley grey) it was finished (and actually level with the rest of the flooring) -

So now - finally - with the paneling I installed above the mantel this past January - the paint and now the slate - the fireplace is complete. I had wanted to strip the paint from the brick but after testing some spots I discovered the brick wasn't very pretty. Nor was it above the mantel - I had ripped off the beadboard years ago hoping to find beautiful brick. Nope. Just plaster. So I built that paneling.

But now that it's done I like it. Some old original brick would have been cool but oh well. I still like it. Oh yeah - and here's what it used to look like when I first moved in -

fireplace part two.

Okay, so apparently like just about every project I've ever done somewhere along the way I got a groove and figured out what I was doing cos it only took about an hour today to finish up building the other half of the paneling - go figure -

Now I just have to caulk and spackle the staples, prime a couple more things (uhh, those two vertical slats that aren't primed are because I'm retarded and I routed the side that was primed - oops) and then paint it and it'll be done. Oh, and paint the bricks which shouldn't be bad. Then rip out the ceramic tiles that make up the hearth now and put in some slate ones.

Oh, and I found a photo of the original beadboard molding pre-me tearing it off -

I have to say I like mine better. And even back then I had gotten a bunch of slate tiles to see how they'd work (they're in the photo lying on top of the ceramic ones) so apparently I'm still going with that. I wonder if I still have those or did I return them ... ?

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.

More ideas.

So Friday was a good day on the idea front thanks to a forwarded link from Katie. In that single link came two really big ideas: one to solve my fireplace dilemma and another to provide me with the perfect kitchen cabinets for the real kitchen remodel in a few years.

The problem with my fireplace has always been (despite the gas insert someone installed, which I will remove and return it to just being a wood-burning fireplace because there is nothing better than the sound of crackling wood on a chilly winter evening) the fact someone painted over the bricks at the bottom part of it. And I have always wanted a brick fireplace (one of the things the house I bought had to have was a fireplace–along with a big, covered front porch and window over the kitchen sink among a few others) and I was looking at either a) somehow successfully stripping the paint off all the bricks or b) completely tearing it out and redoing it. Neither one a great prospect. But here is this idea ~

Now I realize it is not brick and I am still coming to grips with that (there could be nothing cooler than a wall of old bricks in my house–especially in my bedroom). But I could make this work with the top half of the fireplace and have a great mantel dividing the two. I could perhaps figure out a way to create a border of bricks and paint them black just like this idea (along with the inner hearth). For the outer hearth right now it is some lame ceramic tiles that were laid (but not grouted) when I signed on the dotted line. But I never grouted them because I knew I was going to rip them out. I had envisioned a nice big (it's 18" x 5') slate slab (ideally, one big piece as opposed to tiles) but I am not 100% sold on that yet.

Okay, and then for the kitchen cabinets ~

What I noticed of course right away was the moulding at the top of the cabinets. Uh, which totally matches the moulding around the windows and doors and will go with the crown moulding that I'll hang along the high ceilings (from that earlier post). I am not sold on the supports they have beneath the cabinets and probably will leave that part out because they don't fit with my style, but this was priceless. Even the lower cabinets with the baseboards are perfect. I love the bin pulls for the drawers but would have to replace the small circular cabinet knobs with these because, well, I like squares and rectangles and right angles in my designs.

And I also really dislike dark cabinetry because it's, well, too dark. And makes the whole room darker. So I would paint them (most likely) just white. Or maybe a light grey. But the point would be to have light cabinets contrasted then with a dark (maybe granite, maybe concrete–not sure yet) countertop. And stone flooring (like a dark slate).

Another thing about it that caught my eye that I'll be debating is the wainscoting. Wainscoting is super-classy so I might just be inclined to put it in my kitchen like this, reaching up the walls at least four feet (maybe more) with a dimensional stock border going around it (4" or 5" I think–like the window casing along the sides). And of course then the color of the kitchen would be a rich one that would contrast with the white wainscoting, moulding and cabinetry (not–like this picture–white!).

So anyways, a couple of really good ideas all from one post. I was excited. And thanks Katie.