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Fri, Jun 22, 12 at 13:09
| Greetings! We are switching to a direct vent fireplace which will require some modifications to the brick. A good time to update my fireplace. I've never like it because it looks too large for the wall/room, the bricks are too close to the windows, & its size darkens the room.
Options I'm considering: 1) New Mantle - Wider & better proportioned to the FP. A white or cream color. Paint upper crown molding to match. 2) Remove bricks from sides (8-12 in.) to reduce width (not sure if possible). 3) Add a surround w/tile or stone inside it; perhaps panel over the upper half of the bricks. 4) Paint the bricks white/off-white, paint mantel & molding. 5) Start over! Demo the bricks, put crown molding in whole room, & find a fireplace I truly like. I am collecting inspiration photos from Houzz, etc. & feeling overwhelmed. Would love opinions from others! Thanks in advance! |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by fallingwaters (My Page) on Wed, Jul 4, 12 at 22:56
| i think with a new mantle and matching crown molding all away around the room the fireplace will look great. otoh, if you can afford to replace the windows i'd do that. installed close to the corners so you can add drapes. nice tall windows would look good there. |
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| fallingwaters - Thx for your input! Yes, a new mantel better proportioned to the fireplace could help. The current one seems too "heavy" and not wide enough. Perhaps a more simple mantel, the width of the brick area, would help. I think a white/cream color would brighten things up along with the extension of the crown molding (also in white) in the room. Probably expensive to move the windows, plus the fireplace is not centered along the wall (we have a 2 ft bump-out to the right). We are still debating on debricking half our outside chimney to eliminate leaks. If we do that, we'd need a direct vent fireplace, which would have a different firebox size. They would have to tear down our inside bricks to fit the new FP, so we'd most likely redo everything. Decisions, decisions! |
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