Happy Friday!
Today, I have a rental approved tip to help you spruce up your dingy fireplace. Enjoy…*This post may contain affiliate links*
Living in rental definitely makes me think outside of the box sometime. For the longest I have been wanting to do something to my fireplace. It has always been the eyesore in the living room. It is beat up and crooked. As I was looking around at my decor in the room I realized that it would be an easy improvement to update the fireplace if I used marble contact paper to give it a more chic look. Let me say…It did. It is ah-mazing how a small change can make a HUGE impact!
You can see from the above image what kind of condition the fireplace was in before the improvement. No matter how much I cleaned and scrubbed that thing it never seem to get clean, it really bothered me.
Materials:
Darice 7-Piece Hobby Knife Set
The MAIN materials are contact paper and an exacto (or utility) knife. If you want a different type of contact paper other than the type I have shown, you can purchase it on Amazon, they have a handful of faux marble look-a-likes in different shades of color. You will also need scissors to cut the contact paper prior to adhering it or you can use your exacto knife, if you want.
Steps:
Prior to doing anything to your fireplace make sure you give it a good wipe down so that the contact paper will stick to the fireplace surround. When doing most DIY project the best thing to remember is to always clean the piece prior to working on it, it will help whatever medium you plan to use on your piece adhere to your piece better.
After I cleaned the fireplace surround, I cut the marble contact paper in strips to the desired size leaving about 1/2″-1″ extra paper to work with in case of inconsistency or faults within the fireplace.
I lined my paper up to the edge of the fireplace and adhered it to the fireplace surround, leaving the extra overhang of paper the side on the fireplace where the molding is at. Then I took my exacto knife and I trimmed off the extra remaining contact paper.
Look at that fireplace! It is a slight improvement, right? I think so! I never knew how crooked the fireplace was until I took this photo. With the white you can see more of the flaws within the fireplace, but I knew that I would be dressing this area up so it really did not matter to me.
I chose to block off the fireplace using a mirror. My son loves to try and crawl up into this thing and I desperately needed something to block him from doing so. No worries about him messing with the mirror, we have had this mirror like this for about a month and since placing it in front of the fireplace, he has not even attempt to mess with it. However, I would not deem this safe for those with babies or toddlers who are all over the place.We have never used the fireplace and we have no intentions to do so, so I think this is the perfect solution to adding a more chic, cool vibe to the room. Also, the mirror reflects one of the only source of light that we have in our downstairs, which is pretty nifty and somewhat energy saving during the day when no one but me and my son are at home.
*If you choose to block off your fireplace, you can always use a large framed photo or art and adhere it using command strips.
I probably should tell people if they come to visit not to sit on the couch if they are wearing a skirt or a dress, huh? Haha! I always think about that whenever I see the mirror…but it looks SO cool! To prop the mirror to the desired height, I used some old but chic Vogue, Glamour, and other fashion magazines. The other decor pieces are interchangeable, but I love how chic and feminine it looks with all the gold. My living room is finally coming together the way I imagined it to and I am Loving it!
*NOTE: I am aware of the dangers of things falling on kids, if you choose to place a mirror in front of your own fireplace do it at your own discrepancy.
Linked up with: Classy Clutter // House of Hipsters //
