One of the things we really loved about our house was the fireplace.  Just to have one is really cool.  Does it work currently?  No.  But does it work to hold Christmas stockings during the holiday season?  Definitely.  And in my book, that’s all I need in life.

The orange-red brick was ok, and I didn’t mind it, but as the years past I felt the biggest room in our house needed a little update.  Originally I thought to do the whitewash brick (it’s all the rage) but turns out the brick we have is way to porous with its grooves, and it literally just sucked up the paint.  So we went with the alternative, just to paint it. We also added a nice wood mantle that Nathaniel distressed.  He bought a big ol’ piece of wood, cut it to size, roughed up and rounded the edges, put some dings in it, burnt it, and then stained it.

I absolutely love how it all turned out.  The only thing left to do is to update the brick floor at the base of the fireplace, we didn’t want to paint it for fear it would scratch when little dog/cat paws walk on it.  So we’ll probably tile it at some point.

I definitely channeled my inner Joanna Gaines on this one!

Before