Fireplace Update

Happy Tuesday!! Do you have an old fireplace that needs to be updated? I wanted to share the update I recently did to my old fireplace. Let’s take a look at what it looked it prior to giving it a face-lift.

Before:

The brick seems outdated and dingy. I’ve scrubbed those grout lines many times, which it seems to never get clean. It was certainly time for a change.

I’ve debated long and hard on what to do to give this fireplace an update. I’ve debated on painting it white, painting it black, or doing some sort of stencil design. That’s when I came across something that’s called a German Smear, which is also referred as a Mortar Smear. Let me share with you how I accomplished this look.

How To Do a German Smear:

Prep work—- first thing you need to do is protect the surrounding items/area’s. I started by taping everything off followed by laying down a protective barrier to protect the surrounding wood floors.
Mix your Mortar—- I used what I already had on hand. It was a fine sand mortar in bright white. If you have a bag to mix— just follow the instructions as provided.
How to Apply— your mortar mix should be a pretty thick consistency (it shouldn’t be too runny). I figured out really quickly that the best way to apply was by using a putty knife or putty spatula. I simply scoped up a small amount and worked in small sections. I applied it first to all the grout lines on the brick—- and just scraped it along the surface of each individual brick. Even though that sounds time-consuming, completing the task went very quickly.

Wipe away excess—- I followed up by wiping away any excess mortar. I used a damp sponge for this, while keeping a bucket of water close by.

The great part about using this method and material to update your fireplace— is that you can keep working the material in order to achieve the look your after. I let evertything cure for about 24 hours until I could use or touch the surface.

Magic Light Trick

If you caught one of my recent blog posts, I talked about wanting to do the magic light trick. This is where you can take a regular wall sconce and pretty much mount it anywhere without needing it to be hardwired (no electricity). This is where I took some battery operated lights and mounted it to the sconce where a light bulb is supposed to go. I used a combination of using an adhesive sticker and some wire by threading it through the bottom/back part of the pocket light.

I bought—- these wall sconcesonline. I attached them to the wall as per the instructions. Each wall sconce did have wiring on the back of each one (where it’s supposed to be hardwired) I simply tucked the wiring in the back of the light.

The box of battery operated lights I purchased came with a total of 6 lights along with a remote. I used 2 lights for this project and keep the remote close by to turn the lights on/off.

After

The bucket you see below, I snagged from the Antique Shop that I went too a few weeks ago. I love it mainly because it’s a functional piece of décor. With our fireplace wood burning—– carrying wood in and out of house can become messy. This bucket holds wood perfectly and keeps most of the mess contained. I found a similar bucket online—— here .

This entire project isn’t 100% complete. I still have to obtain some tubing in order to hide the wires to the right side of the fireplace. That’s on my “to-do” list—- that I’ve been dragging my feet on completing.