Indecisive

I don't know what it is about our fireplace that makes me so indecisive.

First we were going to keep our existing arched brick fireplace and I spent hours trying to strip the paint off the brick...

Then I got frustrated and tore it out...

Then we settled on buying a new gas insert and building a new mantle...

We were going to fill the inside of the mantle with brick left over from the chimney... but now that it is time to install the brick I am having having trouble committing.

I keep seeing images on pinterest that make me double guess myself on the brick.

Marble Mosaic Tile
Via The Marion House Book

Glass Tile
Via House of Turquoise



Black Stone
Via Pinterest



Dave has given me until Thursday to decide so I will be spending the next four days searching the internet and tile stores for options.

After that I might have to cancel my Pinterest account so I don't get tempted to change my mind again...

Amy

Best Laid Plans

Despite appearances and our best intentions, Dave and I are actually not very good at the planning part of renovating. Most of the time we actually just wing it and figure things out as we go along. For example our recent adventures with the front steps...

We knew we had to eventually replace our front steps to work with the new wider front door... but it was pretty far down the to-do list. Like somewhere on next year's to-do list...

That was until the neighbour lent Dave a jack hammer a couple weeks ago... then we figured it was kind of important to have front steps with winter coming and all... kind of hard to shovel snow off of concrete rubble.

Then while together hiking in Larch Valley the other weekend, our friend Dave, who happens to be a very talented concrete foreman, offered to help us rebuild the front steps. Complete with stamped and stained concrete.

That got us excited. We began searching the Internet for inspiration and stumbled upon this:

All of the sudden our simple plans for new wider steps grew into a new steps and a new porch and a new sidewalk. But thankfully Dave was up to the challenge.

Unfortunately the only time he was available to help us was that coming weekend. So we agreed we would do the form work and rebar on Saturday and then pour the concrete on Sunday. Great! We had a plan but that only gave us five days to get everything organized and complete the demolition.

Dave set to work removing the last of the old concrete (which ended up involving renting a concrete saw) and pulling out the old flower beds, while I was charged with the task of ordering concrete. Easy right - just ask the contractor building the house down the street. Ha! He just laughed and informed me that no one delivers concrete on Sunday and if I did convince some one to deliver they would charge a ridiculous premium. We didn't have much choice so I started to make phone calls...

Four days later, after pretty much exhausting every number in the phone book, I managed to find ONE company in all of Calgary willing to deliver concrete on a Sunday morning - GAL Concrete Couriers. Thankfully their rates were reasonable and they were fantastic to deal with too boot!

Saturday we worked well past dark to have everything ready in time and at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning, the concrete truck pulled into the yard.

By early afternoon on Sunday we had beautiful new stamped and stained concrete.

Sigh... It is no wonder we are always exhausted.

Amy

Presto Chango

Getting soapstone is a bit anti-climatic. Even though the stone has been cut and polished is still not shiney like granite or marble. It arrives looking more like bland concrete than lustreous stone.

In order to give soapstone its luster you have to treat it with mineral oil. It is pretty amazing what a little oil can do!

Before

After

It is still not the deep black that I envision when I dream of soapstone but it is still a gorgeous peice of stone and is going to look fantastic against the walnut hardwood.

After all of our fun with levelling cement, the soapstone hearth is finally in place. Unfortunately the fireplace doesn't look like much yet...

Rest assured - we are planning to build a new wood mantel similar to the one below that I spotted at Rouge Restaurant. Except we will be painting the mantel white with the top ledge in walnut and will be installing a cast iron gas fireplace insert.

The best part - we have exactly enough brick veneer left from the chimney in the kitchen and office to complete the fireplace front! I love anything that doesn't require us spending money!

Amy

Soapstone

Dave LOVES soapstone. He lobbied for a long time to have soapstone counters in the kitchen. After extensive research and searching, I vetoed it when I found out the beautiful, uniform black soapstone found in school labs and Martha Stewart's kitchen is now almost impossible to come by. Supplies of soapstone are getting low and most of the stone available now is heavily veined and rarely black.



What I wanted...



What I found...

I do love soapstone too, so ever since the kitchen we have been trying to work it into the house some where... neither of the bathrooms have counters, it is too expensive and heavy to justify for a desktop and our laundry room is just simply out of the question (there is a reason there are no photos of the basement). 
Finally we have found the perfect location to use soapstone - on the hearth in front of the fireplace!

The slabs are the perfect thickness to inlay into the hardwood flooring, the colour will compliment the brick on the mantel and anchor the black cast iron insert, and soapstone has excellent heat retention so it is ideal for a fireplace hearth. Plus we only needed a small peice so we would be able to save money by getting our stone out of remnants from other projects.

Last week I visited the remnant pile at Dauter Stone to pick out a piece of soapstone. They had remnants available in three types of soapstone - I was torn between the charcoal grey Canadian (back) and the deep black green veined Serpentine (front). Ultimately I decided the Canadian soapstone would work better with the grey accents in the brick (really I was scared to commit to the green veins in the Serpentine - too much colour for something so permament!).

Now we just have to wait for our stone to be cut and polished. Hopefully it will arrive soon so we can start the hardwood flooring!

Amy

Curb Appeal

Since the new front door is larger than the original, we knew we were going to have to rebuild the front steps eventually.

However, now that we are looking to redo the siding this year, I am pushing Dace to do the steps as well... it seems a shame to have a beautiful new house with ugly, off-sided concrete steps on the front!

I am also hoping to convince him to build the new steps out of red brick to match the chimney.


He has been bragging about how good of mason he is afterall...

Amy

How to: Create a "Brick" Chimney

One of the biggest headaches in our kitchen was an ugly concrete block chimney.

Previously the chimney was hidden behind the floor-to-ceiling cabinets which housed the wall oven. This meant that the cabinets stuck an additional foot into our already cramped kitchen. When we started our kitchen renovation, we actually toyed with removing the chimney entirely but this would have required a new furnace and patching the roof - neither of which we were too keen on undertaking at that point in time. Besides we saw the opportunity to use the chimney as a character piece.  

 

We worked the chimney into the cabinet layout and then clad it in a brick veneer from IXL Brick. Now its look like we had been fortunate enough to uncover a gorgeous red brick chimney!

The same chimney passes up through the office on the second floor. Originally it was hidden in drywall but again we thought there was opportunity to make it a feature of the room and use it to frame a built-in desk.

Although it is not a difficult project, it does take a lot of time and patience.

Materials:

• Brick veneer
• Plywood 
• Dimensional lumber
• Clamps
• Tile saw
• Construction adhesive 
• Tile spacers
• Masonry 
• Brick sealer

Step 1: Preparation

Since we wanted to avoid cut bricks, we determined the dimensions we needed to fit full bricks on the front and sides. Luckily it was actually pretty close to the dimensions of the chimney but it did need to be 3" wider. 

We used four 2x4s to make up the 3", two on each side, which we applied to the concrete block using construction adhesive. We used concrete screws and clamps to hold the 2x4s in place until the adhesive set.

Then we covered the entire chimney in plywood so that we would have a flat, square base to work off of. We screwed to the plywood to the lumber and glued it to the block.

Step 2: Applying the Brick

We chose to apply the bricks using construction adhesive instead of a masonry mortar because it was cleaner and faster - although very smelly! We used LePage PL 400.

Beginning at the floor, we began to apply the bricks, using stacks of plastic tile spacers to achieve the space we wanted between the bricks. We only did a handful of rows at a time to give the construction adhesive time to set in between.

When ever a tile needed to be trimmed to fit flush against the wall, we used our tile saw to cut it down to size.

It took a full week to glue all of the bricks in place but it was worth the wait to ensure that none of the bricks slide out of line.

Step 3: Grouting the Brick

Once all of the adhesive had set, we grouted the bricks with a grey masonry grout. Follow the instructions on the bag of mortar to mix it with water. Mix with a trowel until the mortar is the consistency of peanut butter.

Most people recommend using a baker's bag to apply the mortar and we used this method successfully in the kitchen but for the office we simply used a trowel to fill the gaps between the bricks. 

Allow the mortar to dry completely and then use a masonry jointer and wire brush to remove any excess mortar and recess the joints.

Use a damp sponge to remove any dust and haze from the bricks. Be careful not to scrub the grout too hard.

Step 4: Sealing the Brick

To complete the project we sealed the brick and grout.This step is not critical but we didn't want to be scrubbing food stains out of the brick in the kitchen and figured we should do the same in the office for good measure. We chose to use TileLab SurfaceGard because it had a matte finish so the bricks would not end up shiney.

Amy

Change of Plans

Despite all of my hardwork stripping the paint from the fireplace, I was still not confident that I wanted to keep the original fireplace mantel.

Dave and I decided to go shopping to see if we could find a gas insert to fit into the tiny 24" wide opening in the existing chimney. We managed to find a couple insert the might work including the Valor Portrait President Fireplace.

It is not the wide open clean-view fireplace we set out looking for but it does look like an antique cast iron gas insert which may have originally been found in the house.

So until the estimators from the fireplace company come to the house and tell me that it won't work with our existing chimney, I will be dreaming of a fireplace like this:

Via Young House Love

Amy

Progress - Day 147

It has been a long week with lots of late nights but we have managed to get a lot checked off the list.

The trim in the spare bedroom is done and ready for painting. The master bedroom is close too - only the trim in the loft is left. In between installing, putting and sanding trim, we also managed to:

Covered and stained the beam in the master bedroom.

Stencil the feature wall in the master bedroom.

Install the flooring in the loft.

Grout the chimney in the office.

There is still a long list to do before the carpet can be installed so we are not done with the late nights yet.

Amy

Progress - Day 114

Almost feels life we haven't made any progress in the past two weeks. Our energy seems to be wrapped up in everything but the house right now.

Dave was approached about a flight nursing position in Yellowknife. The interviewing, waiting, debating and then ultimately the hard decision to pass on the opportunity consumed a lot of our energy. What ever little energy we have had left was devoted to our cat Luci who reached the end of her battle with cancer today.

None the less - we have been getting stuff done - slowly.

The chimney in the office is now complete and looks fantastic. I am happy with how well the blue compliments the brick. (I apologize for the mid-project pictures, the camera got forgotten at the house)

The IKEA Pax closets are installed in the master bedroom. I am already dreaming of all the fantastic components I can buy...

After a week of noxious paint fumes and hand cramps, the stairs and fireplace are coming along. Still along way to go...

We are hoping to escape to the mountains skiing this weekend - hopefully a little sunshine and fresh air will give us the energy we need to tackle the renovation whole-heartedly again next week.

Amy