Technically there was nothing wrong with this fireplace other than it needed some touch-ups here and there. However, two weekends ago we got the itch to make some serious changes and decided the living room fireplace was a perfect candidate. It's an electric fireplace so we knew going in we wouldn't have to worry about gas lines or a chimney flue. We began by taking down the TV and wall mount:
Then I started removing the trim around the base:
Next came the mantle. My other half was visiting with his dad for the weekend and I was
too antsy to wait for him to get back so I jumped at the chance to do a
little demo work. I used two scrap 2x4's from Home Depot as a makeshift
lever:
The mantle piece came off way easier than I thought it would. Phew! After taking off the remaining trim pieces, I started removing the tile using a small pry bar and a flat-head screwdriver. About halfway through I started thinking I was crazy to be removing perfectly good tile on a perfectly good fireplace and got up to take a break. I had left the screwdriver jammed into the sheet rock and when I came back I found my cat hard at work where I left off:
That was all the motivation I needed to keep going with the project (although I decided it would be better to keep kitty in a different room while I worked so off he went). The tile came off easily enough and I was done in a relatively short amount of time. I then decided I would tear off the sheet rock. You know those TV shows where you see people busting through walls with hammers and everyone looks so happy because, well, demo work is fun right? Oh how I wish I could experience that feeling! I picked up a hammer and swung it as hard as I could at the sheet rock, fully expecting to blast out a hole the size of a basketball (or at least a golf ball) and nope. CLANG!!! It just bounced right off and made the loudest noise possible. Since we have neighbors sharing walls with us, I decided it would be best to not continue with this method. And since it was also past the hour of noise-making (one thing house owners don't have to worry about as much) I called it quits for the night.
The next day I woke up to a surprise visit by my parents! They came up to help me with the rest of the demo work (what a nice thing to do huh?)
And we left off with a clean slate:
I'll be back to share more soon!
P.S. I put the old fireplace mantle on Craigslist for free and found a new home for it the same day. Woo hoo!
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