This project was one of the finishing touches of our basement living room renovation project, which also included removing the popcorn ceiling. As shown below, the fireplace began with a very different look, which we described as something you’d expect to see in The Flintstones.

I somehow found a way to make demolition a lot harder than it needed to be. How did I do this? I started by plucking individual stones from the wall, thinking I could preserve the drywall. This turned out to be really difficult. Stones weren’t coming off very easily. After chiseling about 2 dozen rocks from the wall over the course of an hour, I ended up cutting the drywall to remove the rest of the stones. This meant replacing the drywall, but saved me a ton of time!

We found our new tiles at Home Depot.

In addition to updating the fireplace surround, we also built an elevated slate hearth. I cut out a small section of carpet and put the tiles on a grid of 2x4s.

With the masonry finished, we completed the project with a mantel.

We love how much this improved the space! Thanks for reading!
-Mike