Sprucin' Up the Fireplace

The old fireplace at 16202 was in need of some sprucin' up. Just a little bit.

Originally, we had marked the fireplace pretty high on the priority list for replacement. We thought, a fireplace? How expensive could it be? We did some cursory Google searching and found stuff like this:

We thought $239.. that ain't no thang! Wehehell... we quickly learned how to read these tricky fireplace websites. This particular posting is listing the screen thingy at the top and bottom of the fireplace.

The actual price for a a whole replacement gas, direct vent, fireplace was more like:

Yeah, wasn't gonna happen. Luckily, I live with Jaydee and he can fix most things. Except not the old fireplace... but the good news is he got it looking like it'd work again.

Pretty impressive, huh? Who needs a working fireplace anway? Especially when we have Abby Normal (stay tuned for your introduction to Abby the Nest, she's great).

Today, I decided to put the final touches on the for-looks-only fireplace. Jaydee had some other plans for the day. Since we recently got a fancy new grill, Jaydee and Toby decided to transform the old broken grill that came with the house into a smoker.

See the shiny new grill in the background?!

While the boys were out smokin' pig butt, I stripped that stylin' gold trim off the old fireplace. Ok ok, I actually had to ask Jaydee to come inside real quick and help pull the gold pieces off... the screws were real old and apparently I'm a bit drill-challenged.

I found a good spot on the side of the house and set to work with a can of spray paint. When I was walking out the door, Jaydee shouted a couple of reminders - "Put the can of paint in warm water. Cold paint doesn't go on as smooth." "Take your finger off the button after each swipe!" "Lots of light coats. Stay at least 8" away." "Don't spray paint the cars, ok?" All great tips and after the shelf staining fiasco I was determined to make this paining experience to go over smoothly (eh um, no pun intended).

I used Valspar Metallic spray paint. It's easy (and I like that) because you literally just wipe the victim down, then spray. No scuffing up the surface, no primer, no fuss.

Four coats of paint and one night of drying later, we had silver. BAM! Check it out. Not a bad fireplace makeover, eh?

P.S. The pork butt was delicious.