Custom DIY at Victoria Joanne's Home

Busy Busy Busy!  July was a time of change!  It was time to move on... But the family room was so plain and boring...   FIRST The walls went from builder white to a beautiful mocha brown.   Love it.     NEXT was the actual fireplace area.  We decided that we would embark on a DIY project we have never done before.   This would prove to be difficult but SOOO worth it!

I started researching about fireplaces...  after which I designed the fireplace surround  shown below, from scratch using my sketch book and pencil.  All this brought us to the Home Depot to purchase wood.    After measuring the walls and the fireplace area we were set with all the wood we would need.   With hammers, drills, and 5 foot level, the job was on it's way.    We used 12x8 wood planks to build pillers on each side of the brick, along with 2 different types of molding.   We doubled the moldings to make a thicker accent for the tops and bottoms of the pillars.   In the center area above the mantel we added beadboard.   The most difficult part was the mitered cuts on the moldings, but with the use of an electric miter saw, we rented from Home Depot, it was all cut  in an afternoon.  


the next week I primed it all and then painted it with semi-gloss white paint.  It all came out so wonderful that we plan to do even more DIY projects next spring in our future home.  

Here is the finished product ready to be shown to potential buyers.   We love how our new fireplace mantel/suround came out.  it's that add touch that becomes the new focal point of the large family room.  No more boring walls and basic brick fireplace.   Now it had color and style all over it.