Fall 21 ORC Week Four: Fireplace Resurfacing
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It’s week four of the One Room Challenge, officially the half way point! This week has been a busy one with drywall framing going in on Tuesday, our electrical rough-in being installed yesterday, and more drywall work happening today. Until now, Zach and I have done all of the work on our house ourselves, but electrical wiring is one job we don’t feel comfortable doing. We considered installing the drywall, but with the deadline of the challenge we decided it was best to hire contractors for both jobs.
One project we’re tackling ourselves this week is resurfacing the fireplace. As a reminder, here’s where we started:
The first step in resurfacing the fireplace was removing the tiles, which Zach did using a 1” rotohammer we rented from Home Depot. They’re not cheap, but they speed up the tile removal process a lot, so we’re really happy we could rent one.
What we were left with after removing the tile was a rough surface with some adhesive and tile mesh still attached:
Having never resurfaced a fireplace before, I spent some time on YouTube learning how it was done. The video I found most helpful is by BYOT and uses a quick concrete called Ardex Feather Finish. It’s great for vertical surfaces, which can be more difficult to work with.
To mix it together we used two parts Ardex Feather Finish, one part water, and blended it using a steel spiral mixer attached to our drill.
The Ardex Feather Finish dries in about 15 minutes, so working quickly is key. We used a 6 inch taping knife to spread it on the wall and a 12 inch taping knife to smooth the surface.
As the Ardex Feather Finish dries, the color lightens. The darker areas in the photos below are from a fresh coat we applied to the edges and some areas we’d missed.
The surface is still pretty rough after one coat, but it’s already a huge improvement from where we started. We used one bag of Ardex Feather Finish for this initial layer and we’ll be adding one more layer on top to smooth out the surface. The upper part of the fireplace and the sides will be skim coated and then the entire fireplace will be painted one color to blend. I don’t want to give too much away, so be sure to check out our final reveal in a few weeks to see how it turns out!
If you haven’t already, follow me on Instagram for more updates on our family room makeover!
Thank you again to our partners who are helping us with the One Room Challenge!
Also make sure to check out all of the amazing projects going on this fall for the One Room Challenge!
