Fixed an Off-center Fireplace
by
Diane
2 Materials
$400
8 Hours
Medium
Blah fireplace and shelving nook in our 20 year old lake house in Blairsville, Ga needed some serious help! The entire structure is not centered on the wall, and really makes the room look off balance. Since this is not our main residence we didn't want to invest a whole lot of money but wanted to make it look better. So after lots of pondering of what to do, we decided to close up the upper part of the shelving, add faux stone around the fireplace and add a very simple mantle.
We recently purchased this 20 year old lake house on Lake Nottely, GA and have been making improvements little by little. We enjoy tackling projects ourselves when we can, and the fireplace in the family room was something we felt we could re-do ourselves without spending a ton of money. Since this before picture was taken we did have a general contractor replace the small window shown to the left with 16 foot sliding doors which has really opened the lake view. But in this main room, the fireplace and built in shelving was off-center on the wall and lacking any design at all. To start off, we sealed up the top 3 shelves and then used a lightweight faux stone product, AirStone (Birch Bluff color) available at Lowe's, to create a stack stone look surrounding the fireplace and remaining lower shelves.
You can see in this picture where we had sealed up the top 3 shelves with sheetrock.
We also added a very simple diy mantle, stained walnut, and then added a flat screen tv centered above. The AirStone was very easy to put up -- kind of like putting a puzzle together to make sure you get the variety of colors mixed well.
Finally done and happy with the results. We have not painted the surrounding walls yet because we think we'd like to put up horizontal wood planking on the both sides of the wall surrounding the stone. So done, but really are we ever done?
Comments
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3 of 72 comments
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It still isn’t centered right. That would drive me insane.
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lol !, yeah not completely centered, but a ton better!
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I’m planning to do this on a house we are purchasing.
Frequently asked questions
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are they textures or not?
Could this be used to make a fake fireplace and mantle in an apartment?
How did you cut the Air Stone between the FP and the Shelf area? Also, Ho did you attach the mantle? I have the exact same problem. And yes, we need more women builders who would consider the symmetry of the room!!!