You may have read about our Updated Fireplace already. I was so happy we were able to spray paint the gold and bring that to the 21st century. If you also remember in that post I said I would love to take the tile down and put up some natural wood shiplap. Guess what happened? Yep. Natural wood shiplap.
I had NO idea that was going to happen so soon after we painted the gold. I was fine with where the fireplace was, and was willing to wait to get rid of the tile. Scott, however, had different plans. We were at Lowe’s one night and saw the perfect wood to be able to use for the shiplap. That evening we came home and the tiles came off the floor.
Then Scott and I tossed quite a few ideas for the flooring part of the fireplace. We talked about a compass rose inlay. We discussed mixing wood and tile. And then we settled on tile. A FUN tile. Scott isn’t super keen on tile with a pattern. But, I asked him to trust me and he did! This tile is so pretty.
If you have ever watched an episode of “Fixer Upper” you know the term ” demo day” and Scott enjoyed removing the 21 year old tile. The drywall behind the tile came off with it, so we had to replace that. Once we had the drywall in, Scott laid the tile on the floor. It was so quick and only 6 cuts required. I was weird and wanted the center line for the tile to line up with the center of the fireplace. So the 3 edge tiles on each side had to be cut. This was the quickest tile job we have done so far. After 48 hours we were able to grout the tile. Let me tell you, black grout is messy.
Next up was the shiplap. We used the same mixture of stain that we used on the entry table. It had cooled off really quick and we had to heat the garage so the stain could dry. We also added a polyurethane to seal the wood and give it a more finished look. To give the shiplap more finished edges we framed around the exterior and interior of the shiplap.
We used a nickle to space out each row of shiplap. When we did this, Scott discovered that we would see the light drywall in the cracks. He came up with a simple and easy solution. He got a thick Sharpie marker and drew a thick line between each row. To attach the shiplap we used liquid nails and our finishing gun to put a nail in the 4 corners of each piece. That gave it a very finished look right away.
Scott worked SO hard for two days getting the fireplace finished. The longest was waiting for the mortar to dry so we could grout and move on to the wall. I am SO pleased with how this turned out. I love how much warmer our living room has become with this simple update.