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basic questions - facelift for raised hearth fireplace

Posted by farfrae (My Page) on
Fri, Mar 21, 08 at 9:11

We have a 1970's bi-level house with a brick fireplace in the lower level family room. The fireplace has a raised slate hearth, and propane insert. I want to update the look.

Can cultured stone or tile be applied directly over unpainted brick? We don't have a mantle but I would like to add one.

Hope this in't a dumb question, but can a hook for hanging a picture be added during retiling? The current brick has a hook, but they drilled into the mortar; and you can see where they tried to drill into brick and marred it.

I'll post pics later, camera's batteries are too low.


Follow-Up Postings:

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RE: basic questions - facelift for raised hearth fireplace

We just had this done to our existing 5'-7" wide X 9'-2" tall brick fireplace. We used cultured river rock and a solid piece of blue stone for the hearth and two cobble stones to make a support for the mantle. The stone was applied directly to the brick, you should be able to add a mantle and hooks while its being installed. It took our mason 3 days to complete, and it looks great.


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RE: basic questions - facelift for raised hearth fireplace

Cultured stone and other natural stone tiles (travertine, marble, granite, etc.) are typically applied using a fortified thinset mortar which bonds very well to unpainted brick. So it's pretty easy to install it over your existing brick. There's nothing wrong with installing a picture hook using a screw into the mortar so long as they used the right anchor. It's easy to install it into any new surface also by drilling and using an anchor.


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RE: basic questions - facelift for raised hearth fireplace

Thanks for your replies. My fireplace is about 6ft 2in wide by 8 ft high.
Any idea on price differences for tile vs cultured stone? Are some surfaces less labor intensive to install, which would hopefully decrease $ amount spent.
Also what thickness is the tile or stone. I am wondering about how the insert will adjust to an extra layer over the brick. The insert sticks out with 3 sides, sort of like a bay window.


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