| Project by threetee | posted 674 days ago | 2472 views | 8 times favorited | 17 comments | ![]() |
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My wife and I have been gradually renovating our house. One of our bigger projects was to renovate the fireplace. When we bought the house, the fireplace had an ornate hood mounted over it which was very dated. I removed the hood, and along with the other renovations to the fireplace and surrounding walls (adding tile, painting the walls and installing wall frames), I designed and built a custom surround, using a neighbor’s Federal-style surround for inspiration.
Here’s a ‘before’ picture:
I drew the entire project out on graph paper beforehand to get the measurements right. Once I had my plan, I gathered materials: pine and MDF boards were pretty much all I needed.
I used pine for the front of the pilasters and MDF for the sides. I cut everything to size and routed the flutes and inset on the front pieces:
I then assembled the pilasters using biscuit joinery, installed the moldings in the insets, and attached them to the wall using my nail gun:
The crosspiece was simple enough: pine front and MDF sides, with a simple profile routed on the bottom (it’s hard to see from this picture, but it’s there):
Here’s a ‘during’ picture, taken after the pilasters and crosspiece were up and after the tile had been installed. I took a break at this point so that the hardwood floors could be laid in the room:
For the top shelf, I first profiled the edges of a piece of pine that had been cut to extend beyond the pilasters just enough to look nice with the molding I chose. After attaching that board, I added some spacers cut from scrap pine on top of it, then nailed another two boards on top, the bottom one with profiled edges, and the top one with rounded edges. Attaching crown molding around the top gave me the final profile I wanted for the shelf. I then attached 3/4” pine + quarter round at the top and bottom of the pilasters, astragal for the bands around the pilasters, and base cap molding on the crosspiece. Sorry, no pictures of any of these steps. :(
Prime everything, then a couple of coats of Dunn-Edwards semi-gloss white, and here’s the finished product:
In those pictures you can see some bits of the baseboards, wall frames and built-up chair rail that I installed, but that’s another project. :)































17 comments so far
Grant Davis
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481 posts in 804 days
posted 674 days ago
Well done, an awesome additon and upgrade.
-- Grant...."GO BUCKEYES"
GaryK
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9533 posts in 884 days
posted 674 days ago
Fantastic looking job!
-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.
JC
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127 posts in 694 days
posted 674 days ago
Incredible before and after – great project!
-- JC - Central PA - www.affyx.com
Scott Bryan
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20716 posts in 718 days
posted 674 days ago
That is really a nice upgrade. The fireplace and wainscoting really are wonderful touches for the room. You don’t see enough of that in houses today. I am a firm believer that you cannot put too much wood in a house.
Thanks for sharing.
-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.
rikkor
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11335 posts in 771 days
posted 674 days ago
Wow, that’s wonderful.
mrtrim
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1698 posts in 776 days
posted 674 days ago
nice looking work !
ChrisBabayco
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66 posts in 824 days
posted 674 days ago
A great looking fireplace that you have tied in wonderfully with the walls. Great job!
CharlieM1958
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7657 posts in 1114 days
posted 674 days ago
Great job!!! Huge improvement over the old design.
-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"
cajunpen
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5968 posts in 962 days
posted 674 days ago
Outstanding job – the difference is like night and day.
-- Bill - "Suit yourself and let the rest be pleased." http://www.cajunpen.com/
Jiri Parkman
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603 posts in 709 days
posted 674 days ago
Gongratulations, that is perfect.
-- Jiri
MsDebbieP
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14160 posts in 1057 days
posted 674 days ago
so beautiful..
Nicely done
-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)
Robb
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356 posts in 830 days
posted 674 days ago
Great looking project! You must feel really good every time you sit down in that room. Nice work.
-- Robb
Critterman
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546 posts in 706 days
posted 674 days ago
Stunning! Excellent work.
-- Jim Hallada, Chesterfield, VA
jockmike2
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7325 posts in 1143 days
posted 674 days ago
You did an awesome job, really great. mike
-- Mike. mwurm13@yahoo.com
Topapilot
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123 posts in 737 days
posted 673 days ago
ThreeTee,
Great work!
It appears that you did part of the surround, then tiled the brickwork, then finished the mantel. Is that correct? Any thoughts on the sequence of work now that you’ve finished?
threetee
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6 posts in 675 days
posted 673 days ago
Topapilot: The reason I did things in this particular order for this project was because flooring was due to be laid in the room on a certain date, and because the slate tile I used has an irregular surface, I needed to have the tile down prior to the flooring install so that the installer could scribe the flooring to the tile and caulk it to properly finish it. In any other situation, I would probably have finished the wood surround and mantel before doing the tile surround and hearth. However, this is only because I prefer to focus on one thing at a time, not out of necessity.
Woodchuck1957
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950 posts in 660 days
posted 293 days ago
Very nice looking surround.