Bunny Ears Be Gone

Don’t get me wrong, I like bunnies. Just not when my fireplace brick reminds me of one. See the resemblance? 

For months after we moved into our house I pondered what to do with our outdated brick fireplace surround and mantel. Problem was, we weren’t ready to embark on a huge brick demo project and had yet to try our hand at tiling. I knew that I wanted a more substantial mantel, but it was mortared into place and supported by bricks also mortared into place. And I wasn’t about to take a sledge hammer to that brick (we just so happened to embark on this redo project in the weeks before our first Christmas in our new house…Santa needed a place to stuff stockings!). 

The brick itself wasn’t necessarily the offensive party, it was an ok color–not necessarily what I’d pick, but not hideous enough to merit painting it (I confess I’m not entirely sold on the look of painted brick anyway). So finally it dawned on me, what if we just cover up the bunny ears with drywall, and add a more substantial mantel onto of the existing one? That way we didn’t have to worry with demo or figuring out how to rework the large brick hearth that sits about 8 inches off the floor. Here’s what we did:

 First, Robert (the ever-obliging hubby) added wood to create a frame around the existing brick, and a surface that the drywall could be anchored to. We were able to use one piece of drywall for the front of the fireplace wall and smaller side pieces for the edges, along with corner bead pieces to help create defined edges. This was our first experience working with drywall, and it might have caused just a few headaches and ‘conversations’ between the two of us (along with tarping the already-decorated Christmas tree), but we finally got it done, along with some light texturing on the drywall and paint to make it blend in with the other walls in the living room.

Then we built the mantel out of wood around the existing brick-supported one. The wood was secured with screws and liquid nails to the existing wood. 

Some light distressing to the wood, some decorative trim pieces, walnut stain, and a couple of coats of polyurethane and we had this:

The final step was to add crown molding and hang our stockings with care. 

Today here’s how it looks, the mantel is currently sporting its summer beach attire. 

Ideal fix? No. Cheap and less messy? Kinda. Improvement on the old bunny ears? Yes, definitely.