When the pandemic really set in around March of 2020, I had been lightly investigating tile and other various moods for our living room fireplace. The fireplace wasn’t bad looking, but it was bland, dated, and straight up, not our vibe. I had a general idea of a look I wanted, a bold look and it took me a while to build up my courage to commit to it and look into all the options to make sure it meshed with our style. What is our style? I’m not really sure, but it’s vibrant, quirky, heavily Caribbean influenced, and, most importantly, it has to make us go “wow!”
Where We Started
The fireplace began with large contractor grade tiles. Not only was it bland, but the tiles were crooked. Look at the top left corner on the black surround. I wanted something with quite a bit of impact and started with this 3D textured chevron tile. While I love that option, and may try to incorporate it in the house later on, that tile is going to be an all around bear to cut, grout, and keep clean. The tile that we ended up selecting was a veined chevron, but without all the dimensional aspects that would probably make me regret my choice.
Tools
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Tile First
With the tile selected and all the other materials on order, I began demo-ing the fireplace. Starting with the tiles on the floor, I would strongly recommend investing in a hammer drill. I used a mallet and crowbar and my hands were tingling for days after all that hammering. When I got to the vertical tiles, they were much more solidly adhered to the wall and were not budging. At this point, I decided to forego removing the vertical tiles. The tile adhesive mat did not require the previous tile to be removed, it only requires the surface to be flat. To keep the end result looking nice, my husband cut the metal edging trim to fit the outside perimeter of the floor of the fireplace. At this point, the process is a tedious never-ending measure, cut, stick. The best thing to do before placing a single tile is to lay out the entire section, starting with a sheet of tile in the center and work outwards, staggering the sheets. This prevents any lines from appearing during installation and grouting. Nothing beyond standard grouting and caulking after I got the tile stuck on the mat. I wasn’t sure how long I had before the tile adhesive mat would dry out, so I tried not to expose the adhesive in an area until I was ready to install the tile.
A Year Later, Paint
We started off seeing a photo on Instagram, where the person used a color called Black Mocha. Black Mocha is not a Sherwin Williams color and we are hardcore on the Sherwin Williams train. So we went to Sherwin Williams to select some colors that still had the same moody, inky color without being a harsh black. The top two colors ended up being Iron Ore and Green Black. I think we would have been happy with either color, but the Green Black had more of the vibe we were wanting. Oh, and those filigree ornamental moulding do-hickeys had to go.
The most important thing I’ve learned with painting is to not skip the prep work and buy the nice brushes. Most paint projects go sideways from either skipping the prep work — sanding, dusting, taping, etc. or using cheap-o brushes. Also, using the appropriate paint for the project is a must. I chose latex enamel in a satin finish for the fireplace and rolled on the majority of the paint with a velour mini roller. This project was my first time using a velour roller and I’m sold on it! For previous similar projects, I had been using a foam roller that was recommended for enamel paint/cabinetry purposes, but noticed that it would leave a trail of bubbles on the surface. The velour roller has a super low nap, no lint, and no bubbles. The smoothness of the paint application was very impressive.
Overall, I would rate this project as beginner friendly. The trickiest part was cutting the metal trim edging as it needed to be pretty accurate, you can’t caulk it to hide the seam gap. Using a wet saw is a pretty easy learning curve, much lower than with using wood saws.
Cost Breakdown
Tile $218.74
Adhesive Mat $55.27
Grout $28.47
Tile Edging Trim $33.16
Caulk $5
Paint $21.29
Painter’s Tape $4
TOTAL (not incl tax) $365.93
**This breakdown does not include gel knee pads, grout float, sponge, wet tile saw, paintbrushes, etc. We either had these on hand or were able to borrow from friends.