Hi, there! Happy Throw back Thursday! Today I’m sharing before and after pictures of our painted brick fireplace at our lake house, aka Happy Hill. It’s amazing how a bit of paint can transform practically anything!
We bought our lake house five years ago last month. For the first two years we worked practically non-stop every time we were there. There is still much to be done, but we are now at the point we can really enjoy it when we are there. Weather permitting we spend most of our time outside. But, at night or in bad weather the den is our favorite spot.
Here is what the fireplace looked like when we bought the house.
The fireplace goes all the way from the main floor to the basement. The front of the fireplace is the first thing you see you walk into the house. Here is what it looked like before as well. The red brick just wasn’t our thing. (Sadly they didn’t leave the piano.)
After we ripped out the carpet, I painted the fireplace in a white semi-gloss paint. We thought about distressing the paint so that some of the red brick showed through, but in the end we liked the clean look of the white paint. We added a mantle since there wasn’t one. Our niece’s husband gave us a beautiful slab of wood and it worked perfectly!
A local carpenter custom made these corbels for us. We went to his shop and picked out the shape from some of his samples. Aren’t they beautiful? He did a wonderful job. We keep thinking we might stain or paint the mantle and corbels but the wood is so pretty, we’ve left them natural. At least for now.
The original fireplace leaked and the chimney was so old we didn’t trust it to use as a real wood burning fireplace. So, we ended up having gas logs installed in both fireplaces. We love the simplicity of gas logs. No clean up, no work, just instant gratification of a toasty fire! The logs are on a thermostat so it really heats up the room in the winter. 
These beautiful hot pink azaleas are from our yard. This is my favorite color flower ever!
In the winter we face the wing chairs towards the fireplace so we can enjoy the fire. During the rest of the year we face the chairs towards the lake so we can sit there and enjoy the gorgeous lake views. In the picture below you can see my fishing lure lamp. All of the fishermen that come to the lake house are tempted to grab one. (Luke, Sammy, David…)
Just looking at the before and after pictures makes me love this house even more. It has truly been a labor of love. And it’s not over! The next big project is to rebuild the deck and add garage doors. I’ll keep you posted on our progress. With a wedding looming later this year, our projects may get pushed back a bit. We’ll see! Hope you have a great day! Thanks for stopping by! xoxo Dell
