One Project at a Time - DIY Blog: May 2015

Here we go you guys, it's been a long time coming, but today we finally make that fireplace a legit fireplace. Remember this?

For those of you just joining us we removed the window from the wall of the Living Room in our Cabin Up North, framed out a new fireplace, built the bookcases for either side, painted and trimmed out the built-ins and built a TV wall from reclaimed wood. Whew.

Finally we had the gas man out and made it burn.

With everything installed and working, we could finally close off the fireplace. We started by covering the framing with 1/2" Durock panels.

If you recall we intentionally choose to bump out the fireplace 6" from the built-ins to give this wall a little depth. That decision ultimately meant a lot more work for us, as we had to wrap these corners with Durock and stone. Because we don't do easy. Ever.

Speaking of we don't do easy- my Dad thought it would be a great idea to build this fireplace piece-by-piece with actual, limestone, stacked stone. Not the easy, ready-to-go tile stone you can find at the Tile Shop that we used on our big, bad and beautiful fireplace in The Lodge, but individual, not fabricated, real deal stones. "Wouldn't that look great?" he said. "Shouldn't it be authentic?" he said.

Sure it would Dad.

The process looked something like this. We laid out dozens of pieces on the floor so that we could piece them together like a puzzle. We cut a few, but mostly just used what we had. It was slow going.