We’re at it again. Dave and I had been contemplating our fireplace for quite some time…with some of other changes happening on the main floor of our house, we wondered what we could do to make our mundane, builder-grade fireplace more modern-looking.

We looked on Pinterest for some ideas; our favorites involved drystack or travertine but we didn’t feel it was worth all that work. After all, the fireplace works perfectly well. Our entire motivation was cosmetic. When it comes to cosmetic, we want to keep our costs to a minimum.

We found some nice ideas on simply painting what we had to update the look.

So that’s our plan.

While I’d have LOVED a gorgeous beetle kill pine mantle, it wasn’t necessary. So we looked into painting our existing mantle a dark color similar to the bookcases to its left and right. Dave discovered that we could use something called a “gel stain”…it goes on nearly as thick as paint, but still allows wood grain to shine through.

We picked up this gel stain through Amazon:

It costs more than paint or standard stain, but all the reviews we’ve read have been very positive.

So…deep brown stained mantle. What about the brick?

Our plan is to simply paint the brick white. We have plenty of white paint on hand. It shouldn’t take more than a quart or so.

There you have it. A fireplace update for about $30. And time. Yes, this will take some time. We also have to sand and prime the mantle, but we also have those materials on hand.