Remember my sitting room makeover? It started almost by accident and, to be honest, I don’t feel like I ever properly committed to it. It has been dragging on for way too long now but, finally, we are starting to see some more progress as we finished our DIY stone and slate fireplace at the end of last year.
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Sandstone Fireplace
If you look back at my inspiration images for the sitting room, it included a white marble fireplace with a black insert. The classic look of a black and white fireplace, but marble seemed too formal for the feel I wanted for the room. What I really wanted was a sandstone fire surround but, with the price for one of those reaching into the thousands, it was more than I was willing to spend. So I found a way to reuse a second-hand one that I picked up for a bargain price in an online listing.
It was reconstituted stone rather than cut stone, but the style and the price was just right. I mean, it wasn’t at all to my taste in its previous incarnation, but I knew I could work with it. It’s important when buying second-hand to look beyond its current condition and to use your imagination to see its full potential.
When we collected the fireplace, it had already been removed and had been stored in the previous owner's back garden for a while. Unfortunately, this meant that the pale-coloured stone had acquired some peat and grass stains. We consulted a stone expert, and the solution was very simple: scrub it with bleach! It was like new afterwards.
DIY Slate Mosaic Tiled Insert
The thing I disliked most about the fireplace I bought was the insert, so the first thing to do was to replace it with something I liked. As in my inspiration image, I liked the contrast of the pale surround against a darker insert, and so I settled on slate as my preferred material to complement the sandstone surround. I longed for a herringbone mosaic tile, but I couldn’t find what I wanted anywhere. So, again, I found a workaround.
I bought 30cm (1’) square tiles and cut them into tiny rectangles.
Then Hubby arranged them into a herringbone pattern on a mosaic backing sheet. He's the one with the head for maths in our house!
I’m not going to lie – this whole process took ages, but it was absolutely worth it to get the look we wanted. A lot of people have asked where we got our tiles, so I’m going to write a more detailed post specifically about that.
As the fireplace had a curved line and the tiles also had to fit around the fire cassette, Hubby transferred the outline of the fireplace onto a sheet of cardboard and used it to pre-cut the mosaic tiles to fit.
Then, starting at the centre top, we worked around the fire cassette and down either side with the tiled sheets.
At each step, we allowed the adhesive to fully set while supporting the tiles with wooden blocks.
Then we removed the blocks to continue tiling.
When all the tiles were in place, we finished them with a dark grey grout.
Slate Hearth
Because I was working with an existing cassette fire, it restricted my options for a hearth as it needed to be exactly the right thickness to fit underneath the bottom rim of the cassette. As luck would have it, that meant it had to be thinner than what was generally available.
I phoned a local stone cutter, but the price quoted for the hearth double what I paid for the fireplace! However, I got incredibly lucky with an online listing. I phoned the guy who was selling it and had him take precise measurements for me. Unbelievably, the hearth was the exact thickness I needed, as well as the perfect length and width to suit the chimney breast and the overall dimensions of the room. Plus it was a fraction of the cost of getting one custom cut as new.
We simply laid the hearth on the existing wood floor and sealed around it using a dark coloured sealant.
Cutting the Stone Fireplace
Our second-hand fireplace needed some tweaking before it could be installed in our sitting room.
First, we removed all the old metal ties and used a paint scraper to remove the traces of adhesive.
Because the original insert had a thick concrete backing, the fire surround was too deep and would have left a gap around our thinner tiled slate insert. So we had to cut down the thickness of the surround using an angle grinder.
Hubby rigged up a wooden frame to encase the stone slabs and to use as a guide for cutting.
Some of the slabs were so thick that he needed to cut along one side, then flip it over and cut through from the other side. But we got there eventually!
Installing a Second-Hand Fireplace
Ideally, a fireplace is installed before the surrounding wall is plastered so that the metal ties securing it in place can be concealed. So we had to improvise a little.
For the uprights, we placed the metal ties directly onto the existing plaster and cut a rebate in the back of the stone so that the slabs sat flush against the wall. For the upper parts, however, it would have been impossible to conceal the ties in this way, so we chiselled off the plaster to hide the fixings.
Above the pillar on the left, you can see the metal tie holding it in place. Along the top, we chiseled off the plaster to conceal the ties that would hold the mantel in place.
We also used tile adhesive between each stone slab, and between the stone and the wall.
The top pieces of stone were fragile from having been removed from their previous setting, so Hubby cut a rebate into the back and added metal braces for extra support.
To further secure the mantelpiece, we secured several bolts into the wall and drilled holes into the back of the mantelpiece to accommodate the bolts so that the mantel could be slotted into place.
Et voilà!
Hubby and I had never worked with stone before, and were genuinely fearful that the fireplace was in too fragile a state to survive all the modifications we wanted to make to it. But it survived, and it honestly turned out even better than I expected. Plus the whole thing - the stone fireplace, slate tiled insert, slate hearth, plus all adhesive and grout required - cost about the same as what I was quoted for just the hearth if I had bought it new! So I hope this encourages you to be bold and if, like me, you have champagne taste on a lemonade budget, remember that where there is a will, there is always a way!
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