A Stone Fireplace Mantel and Stone Fireplace Surround – The Focal Points of the Room
Got an ugly old fireplace? We can fix that for ya!
Some ugly brick can be painted, but some of it just needs to be covered up with a pretty stone like travertine or marble. (If you decide to paint, make sure to do your research – you need to clean the brick a certain way, and use a primer that is made specifically for painting brick.)
Sometimes, an old fireplace can be updated with the addition of custom wood trim work, and a new stone fireplace hearth, or a stone fireplace mantel (or both).
Updating an Old Fireplace Surround
We’ve had clients do all of these (and more):
- Paint the brick, add a granite (or other natural stone) fireplace mantel.
- Paint the brick, add a tile and granite fireplace mantel (see the black granite and glass tile mantel in the picture gallery below).
- Cover up the brick with a full stone fireplace surround, stone hearth and stone mantel – the whole shebang
- Cover up the brick with travertine tile and use slab travertine as the stone fireplace hearth.
- Mix it up with wood trimwork (like fluted wooden columns on the side), and stone for everything else.
We’ve been collecting photos of fireplaces on Pinterest, if you’d like to see what some other folks have done to update their fireplace surrounds.
We also have some samples of our own work in the stone fireplace surround photos on this page.
Getting Ready for a Stone Fireplace Surround
We’d give you a step-by-step plan, but alas, we haven’t got the foggiest idea what you might need to do. It all depends on what you’re starting with, and what you want to end up with in the end.
- By far the cheapest is: just paint it (but use good paint!).
- By far, the most challenging is: rip it all off and put on new stuff that you like better.
Either way, it’s going to take time and planning. We can help you with some of that, but some projects really need a general contractor, or a carpenter, or a mason (or all of those trades).
When Should You Call Toluca Granite?
At the beginning, or as soon as you realize that stone might be an option for your updated fireplace surround.
Here are some examples for what you can call to talk about:
- Do we have a piece of Travertine big enough for a new stone hearth? Or perhaps the hearth and some more stone to face the part between the hearth and the floor (what is that called?). (We got a call like that a few weeks ago. Since then, we’ve saved a piece big enough for the hearth from another Travertine job, and the client will be using large Travertine tile for the vertical surfaces, like the part under the hearth that goes down to the floor.)
- Do we have a piece of black granite, like maybe Black Galaxy (black with gold specks) for a custom mantel?
- Will we have enough material from the granite slabs for the kitchen in the same house to also do a custom mantel? (See the photo on the right. That long piece of Ornamental Cream goes from being a short bar top, to wrap around the front on the mantel for a nice, cohesive look in this rental property.)
- What are the chances of getting a piece of Something-in-Particular that would work?
We can chat about your project, and can keep an eye out for a remnant piece that would work. Sometimes a project needs new material from the stone yards
Photo Gallery of Fireplaces
