The Allwood Home renovation continues… and in this post I am finally showing you our light-colored brick fireplace makeover.

One thing we’ve loved about this new home is the size. We have two large sitting rooms that we can utilize. We love to encourage our teens to bring their friends over, hold Bible studies and other functions. We’d been dreaming of a more spacious house for YEARS to be able to host more church functions and family events! After quite a long four-year process, we finally sold our old house moved into a home that could fit us. We are doing a ton of updates and both of the sitting rooms had fireplaces and both needed updating to fit our style.

In this post, I’m finally showing you our brick fireplace remodel. First, let’s take a look at what the formal living room’s fireplace looked like before … 

When we bought the house old fireplace was pretty. The mantel was very curvy and heavy and it just felt outdated to me. My Magic Brush decorative painting team (my previous business) actually faux-painted this mantel it in a pretty metallic finish nine years ago. Oh the, irony that now I wanted to pull it out!!!

Here’s another photo from when we first moved in. (Notice the mattresses we slept on!) Our first step was to lighten the space with new gray walls, which you can read about here. We also got rid of the carpet and installed dark, rich hardwood floors. You can read about those here.

Jason and the boys had fun ripping the mantel out. People, you, DO NOT NEED to be concerned because we repurposed this pretty mantel! In fact, our trim carpenter took the mantel home!! He loved it and wanted to use it at his house. 

With the mantel gone, already the formal living room opened up! And Mr. Magic had more fun with the tile demo and removing the old sheetrock. 

So here’s the deal: This new home has two living spaces. This first living room, or the “hearth room,” now has our television and will be our gathering room, which is open to the kitchen. (The kitchen remodel you can see here too.) The back living room is a formal living room.

I had a brick vision. I knew I wanted a couple “brick” areas in our house for that extra texture and just a different look on the walls. I also wanted it to tie into this hearth room.

I just love the look of brick. Since we went with a VERY DEEP, dark-colored hardwood floor, I loved the idea of adding the texture and the masculine-feel of brick. But many times, in my opinion, brick is very plain, too dark or too reddish in hue. ????Not ideal for this glam girl!

So this is what we picked! I really really really love the light-colored bricks. 

Since we went with really soft feminine colors on the walls and in the kitchen, (the soft blue island is here. ) I loved the idea of doing a more masculine brick texture on the walls. 

A little background: We learned A LOT about brick through this process and basically there isn’t a lot of light-colored brick options, which was unbeknownst to me!!!! We learned that brick is made from dirt that is pressed together. One of our the brick contractors told me the reason you don’t see a lot of light-colored brick is you don’t see a lot of light-colored soil. Ahhhh. That makes sense to be but I’m gullible and I’ll believe anything. I have no idea of this is true!

The crew installed cement backer boards for the brick support and fire safety. You can see the plan is for the brick to continue up to the ceiling, making the room feel taller while balancing the two flanked windows. It also just makes the fireplace a bigger focal point… something I have always been a fan of and tried to do in my painting business.

Obviously we hired a professional to do this brick-laying work. The light-colored brick looked amazing immediately. 

Can you tell we were just thrilled with our choice in this brick fireplace makeover? 

The grout is white and lovely. So now the brick cladding is complete … you’ll have to see what we did with the new mantel!!!

Update: Check out our “new” repurposed mantel HERE.

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XOXO

Jen

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More fun brick fireplace makeovers are on my Pinterest board HERE