Beach Cottage Living Room Makeover – Fireplace Makeover

I’m back and ready to get going! I started a project recently with my sister and I’m so excited. We live in a little coastal town on the Chesapeake bay – but we live on a whole peninsula. There’s a super cute town north of us and my sister’s boyfriend’s family lives there! They have a beach cottage and wanted to give the living room some love….so we jumped on the opportunity!

Here’s the room before we got started!

The Plan

Our plan was to address the cinder block walls. Only 2 walls in the room are cinder block. So we decided to do a wall treatment and add some bead board for character. Then we wanted to do some work on the fireplace and build a surround for it, leaving some of the brick uncovered. This would help it keep it’s old-cottage vibes. After that, we planned to build banquette seating for the dining table along with lots of fun decor. You know we love to go antiquing so there will definitely be lots of that!!! So excited.

Water Proofing

We put DryLok on the cinder block walls. They planned to put new siding on the exterior which would be sealed. But for good measure, because it’s cinder block (& cinder block holds moisture), we decided to put this water proofing membrane on to prevent moisture from coming through the cinder block and damaging the bead board paneling we planned to put on.

Bead Board Walls

After the DryLok cured, it was time for bead board! We took our measurements and made our bead board cuts! We used a circular saw for this.

Then, we secured the panels with a CRAP ton of loctite. We just applied pressure until it adhered to the wall.

We left all the trim up on the windows because it was so bulky and full of character. So we left it and then just filled in the gaps around all the windows with caulk.

The Fireplace Base

We removed the top board from the fireplace along with the terra cotta tiles. They were super damaged and not worth it. We decided to just do brick all around!

I started drilling into the fireplace to start framing it out! Honestly we didn’t really have a plan for this…we were just winging it! We used 2×4’s to frame out the design we wanted. The plan was to bring it all the way up to the ceiling.

Next up, we made our cuts for the fireplace surround. We drilled the pieces into the frame we made and anchored more 2×4’s into the brick to attach all of our pieces to. Also if you watched my stories…I totally accidentally trapped my hammer in the surround and I only noticed because I was posting to my stories😂

Fireplace Trim

After finishing the base, we got to start adding trim which would give it alllll the character. In a few of the pieces, we made cutouts for vents that would go in as well.

We took a base trim and then laid our trim on top to make it extra thick and to fill in the spaces around the actual fireplace.

Then we added trim where the surround met the ceiling and we put some panels on the open face part as well. Looked so good. I could not wait to PAINT.

Fireplace Brick

Time for brick!! The original brick was nothing to write home about. So we got these older looking, thin bricks to make it look like an original, historic fireplace! It looked sooooo much better wow.

We installed the bricks and grouted. After filling in the cracks of the bricks with grout, it needed to sit for a bit to firm up. Then, you use this little tool called a brick jointer to press the grout down into the cracks. After that, you scrape off the excess!

Paint Prep

I sanded over the whole surround the prep for paint and l caulked all the seams. I’ve been saying this for years…BABY WIPES to clean your caulk lines is the most elite way. It’s smooth and it’s clean.

Also I’ve told you about my electric caulk gun right? It’s life changing I’m not even kidding.

Paint

I loooove the colors we chose for this room! We painted the entire room along with these fireplace vent covers. We decided to go TWO TONED in here😍 We painted all the trim Water’s Edge by Benjamin Moore and then Santorini Blue by Benjamin Moore for the walls.

By the way these vent covers we used are awesome. They are wood and you can customize the size and pattern! They’re super affordable and you can attach them with nails!

Okay so if your painting bead board. Here’s the trick. To get paint in all the grooves of your bead board, use a really thick nap. I used a 3/4″. You do have to go back and do additional coats, but it generally does a really good job at getting paint in all the cracks.

Here are all my go-to paint tools:

Ya’ll it’s looking GOOD in here!

Can’t WAIT to show you the banquette seating we are building next!

xo, Cass

Here’s everything I wore working on the fireplace!