Sunday, May 31, 2020

One Room Challenge / Week Four / The Fireplace


This past week was all about the fireplace! I've been wanting to transform our very dark and drab stone fireplace with limewash for a very long time. I'm going to take you through the process of what I did but first I want to remind you what this fireplace looked like before this project.



I have had a vision for this space for awhile now. I first of all sanded the fireplace mantel down to it's natural wood. I then wanted to fill the stone with mortar since it hadn't been done since it was installed in the '70/'80s. After filling the deep cracks and securing the stone with mortar (which Josh ended up helping me with since it became very time consuming and my arms were about to fall off lol), we decided that it was best to prime the fireplace. You can tell from the photo above but there were a lot of soot stains from the fireplace and years of smoke residue. We then primed the entire fireplace. Let me just say, this fireplace is a BEAST. It covers our entire wall and was very labor and time extensive. 


For the mortar I used a 5 gallon bucket of pre-mixed thin set mortar, heavy duty all purpose sponges, a bucket of water, and a trowel. We applied the mortar on to the stone and smoothed it in the cracks and crevices. We then went back with a damp sponge and put the mortar in a little deeper to fill the deep holes making sure the mortar was flat. We waited for the mortar to dry a couple days before priming the fireplace. 


We then primed the entire fireplace (you can see in the photo below the stains where we had to go back and give those places a thicker coat. We used Bulls Eye 1-2-3 Primer for all surfaces on the fireplace but if I had to go back and do it again I would have used Romabio's BioGrip Micro Primer for better coverage. I didn't realize I would need it and I was in a bit of a time crunch but that's what I'll use in the future. 


Next up: limewash the fireplace! We used Romabio Classico Limewash in Avorio White. It was so easy to work with and we loovvvveee the outcome! 

First off, I mixed my limewash with water and stirred it very good until the limewash thickened.  I ended up using three parts limewash to one part water because I desired a more even look instead of distressing it. I used Romabio's large masonry brush and loved it! It provided amazing coverage and was easy to use. 


I still want to paint the inside of the fireplace black, clean up this space, install new lighting, and hang a large arched mirror over the mantel, but I'm loving this look so far...



Some places look a big grey because those spots have been freshly touched up and haven't dried yet but I love it sooooo much. I'd love to hear what you think! 

Special thanks to Romabio for supplying the limewash and the masonry brush. After this project I am a huge fan of their products and would highly recommend to anyone wanting to trying their hand at limewashing! 

Be sure to check out the other One Room Challenge featured designers and guest participants. It's been so fun following the various projects! 




Until next week!

Hannah




5 comments:

  1. Looks amazing girl! I have been having so much fun following this project. :)

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  2. Oh this turned out so great gf!!!

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  3. Dang!! It looks so good with limewash, it's giving me retro vibes ;)

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