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Showing posts with the label fireplace project

Fireplace Finished in Time for Christmas

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As some of you have already seen in my Facebook posts, I managed to get the fireplace project finished just in time for Christmas.  Actually, I don't think it was finished until 4:30pm on Christmas Eve!  Then, after cleaning the house of all the construction debris and sawdust, we carefully carried an ice-covered Christmas tree into the house and decorated it.  Between wrapping presents, putting together toys for the grandchildren and decorating, I don't think we made it to bed until 1:30am on Christmas morning.   Since we started renovating the house about five years ago, we have seen various parts of the house in multiple stages of construction.  So the purpose of this post is to show some photos of the progression of the living room project over the course of a few years.  There is no doubt that the living room is a much more comfortable and 'warmer' room today than ever before. Of course we still have a lot to do... ceilings, floors, another wall which is shared

Health Delays

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The last real progress made on the fireplace... concrete backer-board for the tile... Well, just about everything is on hold now.  My health has hit its limit with this living room/fireplace project and Christmas preparations. Compounding my problems is the fact that we are expected to have icy road conditions for the next few days which means there is little chance I will get up to Williston and South Burlington for more building supplies, presents, etc.  Of course, if I lack the energy for this it doesn't matter much. My health has crashed quickly this time.  I managed to have a fairly productive morning but then I seemed to hit a wall.  I didn't even have the energy to clean up anything at all.  I just laid down for a few hours and then figured I needed to jump back into working on cutting tile for the fireplace...  no luck. I couldn't even think straight. I needed to measure things multiple times... over and over again... I couldn't draw a straight line no

Tile Work Today?

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Taking shape... notice the new custom paneling in the background where this fireplace will reside... (don't mind the dirty floors... I have really been beating on them this week!) I had an exceptionally productive day yesterday as you can see from these photos.  Not only is the maple and aspen paneling stained and finished looking warm, inviting and beautiful, but I have a good chunk of the fireplace and shelving unit cut and assembled. The mantle will also be aspen to match the walls.  The plywood sides of the fireplace and shelving unit is cut from birch. Much of the rest of the fireplace will be douglas fir and pine. I hand selected all the wood but did have to make some substitutions from my original plans because I could not find what I desired. The finished product should still look beautiful albeit a bit more expensive. Between the price of my substitutions and the time wasted trying to find what I needed, collecting materials was a long, tedious and frustrating proces

Productive Day

Today was a relatively productive day for a nice change!  I'm a little more optimistic that I can finish this fireplace project before the end of the weekend.  That will leave us a day or two to decorate for Christmas and wrap presents...  hmmm...  presents...  I might need to buy some of those soon... The new aspen and maple paneling in the living room is now stained and I have applied three coats of a satin polyurethane.  Ideally, it could really use another two or three coats of poly but the wood grain is filled in enough and sealed enough to make it through the next month or so. Besides, I just might add a coat or two while I am applying poly to the fireplace and shelving unit. That would finish the walls completely. In the meantime, it is looking great tonight! The house is a mess with construction materials all over the place but those new walls look nice! Tomorrow I plan to start cutting the latest batch of finish lumber for the fireplace, mantle and shelving unit.  In b

Starting Fireplace Project

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Although the wall is difficult to see behind all these Christmas presents, we are building a gel-fuel fireplace for this wall between the door and the window.  We will be covering this entire wall in library paneling matching the interior door at left. Today I started working on our newest home improvement project... Building a gel-fuel fireplace with an attached shelving unit for our entertainment components. This project also involves upgrading the entire wall with custom library-type paneling to match the fireplace. Today I started the project by clearing off the entire wall.  I also cleaned and primed the new front entry door.  This door is a steel, 15 lite door currently adorned (sarcasm) in its factory primer coat. Today's priming job is simply an undercoating for a grain-like appearance which will show through a brushed-on wood stain topcoat. In the end, this door should look like a beautiful wood door. I've used this same technique on a few other doors in the past

The Warmth of a Fireplace

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Who doesn't want a fireplace in their home?  A fireplace conjures up feelings of warmth... physical as well as emotional... beautiful architectural details... the faint smell of burning wood... the crackling of the fire... the playful dance of the flame... and a place to hang your stockings at Christmastime. Fitting even a small fireplace in a small home can be almost impossible though.  Fireplaces take up valuable real estate in any home.  Actually, fireplaces often become a major feature in any room and can even be monumental in size.  Even small fireplaces sometimes just can't fit into small homes... or can they?   Preliminary sketch... We have a small home.  Okay...  we have a really small home.  We have only three adults in the house but it is a tight fit.  It is such a tight fit that we are having difficulty renovating the house. Where do we put all the stuff that is in the room we want to renovate while we are renovating? It is like those little sliding tile gam