Beautiful Tiled Fireplace and Mantel Update

Hey all! I’m Sabrina, the girl behind the home improvement blog, Pink Little Notebook. I document the ups-and-downs of renovating my home alongside my husband, Mike. I’m always experimenting with some sort of DIY project and I love sharing what I’ve learned so be sure to stop by and check out some of my before and after home transformations.

Today I wanted to share one of our recent makeovers—our gas fireplace. It was old, it was dingy and more importantly, it didn’t work. Before we even began the update on this corner fireplace, we had to replace our gas insert. We did hire a certified installer for this part, however, the rest of the finishing’s were completely done by my hubby and I.

After contemplating a variety of ways to tackle this corner unit, we decided to keep the oversized mirror above the mantel. This mirror didn’t want to budge at all. Taking it down, meant replacing messy drywall so instead I worked it into the design.

To begin this project, we started by creating a mini soffit. This helped with two things we needed to address: 1) hide the electrical wires from our pot lights that were recently installed; and 2) create a nice transition from the crown molding to the soffit.

To secure the MDF box to the ceiling, brackets and screws were used from the inside of the frame. Another MDF piece was nailed to the bottom to close and complete the look of the soffit.

Next we added a classic marble hex tile to dress up the surround of the fireplace. Make sure to refer to your fireplace’s manual to make sure you are meeting the minimum clearance for combustible and non-combustible materials.

Once the tile was glued and grouted, we were able to put the old mantel back up and begin framing the mirror.

Using MDF panels cut-to-size, we glued directly on top of the mirror using PL Premium (a permanent constructive adhesive). We used a width of 8″ on the two sides while using a width of 3″ for the top and bottom panels. A great trick to keep everything from shifting while the glue is drying is to use a good quality painters tape.

I wanted to add visual interested to this fireplace so I came up with the idea of adding pillars to either side of the mirror. However, purchasing pillars is a costly expense so I made my own out of 3″ plastic pipe.

In order to secure the pipe to the fireplace, we came up with these very clever decorative bases out of leftover MDF. We simply put glue inside the pipe to make sure it wouldn’t twist and nailed the base to the mantel and soffit.

I patched up the existing grooves on the legs of the fireplace surround for a sleek look and filled any reminding seams and nail marks.

I’m all about details so in order to give the mirror a finished professional look, I added cove molding along with a thin decorative trim around the perimeter of the mirror. It was glued directly over the seam where the cove molding meets the MDF. Again I secured it with painters tape until it dried.

When the final coat of paint was completed, the last step was to attach our homemade pillars

Gas Fireplace: Napoleon Ascent 36 Vented Gas Fireplace
Wall Colour: F-Stop (P5243-44), PARA Paints (eggshell finish)
Trim & Fireplace Colour: Whitewash White (P2089-00), PARA Paints (satin finish)
Tile: Marble Hexagon Mosaic Tile 1.2″

Cost Breakdown for Updating Mantel/Fireplace Surround:

Fireplace Mantel: $0 (salvaged old fireplace)
Paint/Putty/Glue: $0 (leftover from other projects)
MDF sheets for framing: $40
Cove Molding + Decorative Trim: $25
Plastic pipe: $15
Marble hex tile: $95

Total: $175
(does not include cost of new gas fireplace insert)

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Thank you so much for sharing with us, Sabrina! What a beautiful update!

Remodelaholics, head over to Pink Little Notebook to see more of Sabrina’s DIYs and style, like how to paint stair risers in 10 seconds or less and her foyer makeover.