Welcome to 2010, fireplace!

David recently did a  revamp on the mantel at my (Lauren's) parent's house.  The poor fireplace was stuck in 1990.  It had a plain stained-wood mantel at the top of the bricks, and a brass insert.  I was going to take pictures of that, but David had already taken them off and I was too slow.  So here it is with the brass insert pulled out, the old plain mantel gone, and some MDF he put up as a backer for all the decorative stuff he was about to add.  I know it's not really a "before" pic, but he didn't wait for me to take pictures. :-)

He built small built-in cabinets at the bottom to go on each side, and he built 8 foot bookcases to go above those.  He also created "columns" on each side of the opening out of fluted board and decorative moulding.

There's one shell of a bookcase, and part of one column.

Now he's got two book cases, and most of the two columns.

He built doors for the lower cabinets, added the shelves into the book cases, and started adding decorative moulding pieces.  He also framed up a box to go between the two book cases that will frame a large picture later.  That box was topped with crown moulding.

David put a new mantel on top of the fireplace, and created dentil moulding above the two white boxes of trim. 

This is what the doors that he built look like.  They have a recessed panel.

Then it all had to be primed.  Since the living room had all stained trim and the mantel was going to be white, the windows and door casings were painted white, too.

Here's a close-up of some of the decorative trim.

Here's another close-up of the crown moulding at the top, and the trim inside the box.  And if you didn't notice, the walls are no longer plain old cream.  They are now.... blonde.  (It was a BIG change for my mother!)  The darker shade really helps the white stand out.

And this is the finished product!  David included several outlets in and around the mantel to make it easier to plug in lamps.

There are outlets inside each lower cabinet, with a hole for the cord to go through so it's hidden.

There's also an outlet that lies flat on top of the mantel, but is not visible when you're looking straight at it.  It's for Christmas lights, other lamps, or whatever you can dream up to plug in there.

And that's it!  Now the fireplace has a lot more presence in the room, not to mention the extra lighting, outlets, and storage space that was added.  It's also a classic look, so it looks like something that would have always been there, not something that was added in later.  Eventually, they will probably add some sort of decorative fire screen in front.  You would never know this fireplace once had a brass insert from 1990 now!  Welcome to 2010, old fireplace!

Thanks for stopping by!!