The #1 fix on the list for our beach house is a makeover (well, it’ll be more of a teardown) of The Weirdest Blue Glowing Fireplace ever!
We’ve had ugly fireplaces before (dark faux stone or bleh brick)…
…but the below fireplace at our beach casita has soared into 1st place for that contest!🏆
All I kept saying when I first saw this tile (ish) fireplace was muttering with a half-grimace, half-laugh,
“Oh no! Someone was really trying to be clever!” 😆
I mean, you can
- Put your TV to the side of your fireplace.
- You can also put your TV above your fireplace.
But apparently this electronic-look-loving-individual COULD NOT DECIDE between those 2 options, so he said to himself,
“Let’s go halfsies!”
Behold! The Fireplace of Indecision!😆
That’s what you see when you first walk in the door.
Let’s keep moving so you can get the Full Frontal Effect (a.k.a. The Full Monty of this fireplace):
Yikes. (Yes, I can read your mind.😆)
Y-I-K-E-S.
“What is happening here?” you might ask, trying to have an open mind (as I did).
And I truly have no answer for you, except conjecture.
And that Jess Conjecture is that someone was filled with indecision on the “TV Over Fireplace…Or Not?” question and…
…decided to literally cut into the swirly tile on the fireplace to “split the difference.”
“Problem solved!” he (or she) said.
TILE FIREPLACE WITH TV
This Is Your PSA for the Day Regarding Glowing TVs!
And not only is there that bit of “creative problem solving”, but (and this might be the worst part for my eyes)…
does anyone notice the blue glow?
Yes, a blue glow is emitting from behind the television itself.
Lest the person’s half in/half out design decision wasn’t quite noticed, he REALLY wanted this one to hit home by highlighting it with a glow.
And a blue glow nonetheless, because hey, why not take it all the way?😆
Honestly, I really hope he (or she, although looking at it appears that a male made this electronic-heavy decision) enjoyed seeing this setup daily.
Because its days are over and
a new day is dawning for this living room!🙌
Sidenote: If you try running into the kitchen to get away from it, but then peek around the corner…BAM! There it is staring at you like a horror movie. (Even the tilt of the camera adds to that feel.)
(If you’ve already heard the Psycho violins playing in the background of your mind while looking at this tilted photo, peeking around the corner of the wall from the kitchen, without me having to suggest that music to you, we may be are humor soulmates, no question.)
Don’t worry, house. I’m not going to leave this Monstrosity of Indecision + Blue Glow in you for long.😘
Help is on the way!
TILE FIREPLACE REMODEL
The Quick Backstory On This Fireplace Remodel!
This isn’t just a case of “Woman Dislikes Fireplace Look; Woman Changes Fireplace.”
No no, there is more to this story.
Let’s set the stage:
- At that time, we’ve left California to travel the world for a couple years and are most of the way through our time working and living abroad. (See “How We Accidentally Circumnavigated The Globe for 2 Years as a Family!”) Through our real estate agent, we learned that our “dream” beach house was coming onto the market in a few days. (Well, if you’re gonna get technical, my dream California beach house was one I saw in Big Sur for $30 million but let’s move on. 😉 ) Even though we were traveling in Sri Lanka and on/off planes at the time, long story short, we made offers and negotiations and got the house. (I share more in “We Bought a New (Well…Old-ish) House!”)
- Now, most of the work this house needed was fine to wait until we got back in the U.S. and were living in the house.
However, there was one thing I quickly realized was not fine to wait until we got back…
…and that was this fireplace!🤣
WHITE TILE FIREPLACE MAKEOVER
Why Couldn’t the Fireplace Remodel Wait?
“Why couldn’t you just wait and remodel the fireplace when you got home, Jess?” a calm, logical reader such as yourself might ask me.
Great question, dear reader. I recognize your logic and I salute it.
And now I’m going to challenge you to take it up a level, because I know you can handle it! 😉 (Truly, we have THE best clients and readers in the world…you’re awesome and so fun to talk to!)
As soon as we were in the process of buying the house, Matt and I were making lists. (Matt’s doing the practical, engineer-y concern list and Jess is doing a mix of everything from design and floor plans to decor and furniture layout because it’s ALL tied together!)
I prioritize my lists (because otherwise they get out of hand!) and FOCUS IN on what the real priorities are. (I help clients—and you!—do this in our Essential #1 Step Home Guide!)
One of the top reasons our guide is helpful (dare I say priceless?) is because it helps you find out the REAL priorities, not just what you’d think/assume through the course of the average day.
Sometimes, there are logical priorities…on the surface.
Sometimes, there seem to be non-priorities…such as “how a fireplace looks”…but upon further digging and analysis you realize it’s actually
the smartest thing you can take care of first!
This is what happened with this fireplace.
At first, it didn’t seem like it would be the #1 thing we’d do on this house. It was a technically functioning fireplace (well, after we had to have it completely redone on the inside🤣). It wasn’t what we ultimately wanted, of course, but surely we could live with it…right?
Nope! After doing our Official Design Analysis, it
made it 100% clear
that the fireplace was the absolute smartest #1 thing to take care of!
(And because the whole interior chimney needed to be worked on, it was the perfect time to do the whole enchilada at once!)
Mmm…now my brain is on enchiladas! Can you tell I’m excited to back in southern California for the Mexican food? OK, it’s 12:12pm, someone feed Jess…
TILE FIREPLACE BEFORE & AFTER
Why a Fireplace Over, Say, Remodeling an Ugly Bathroom First?
In our big house, I wrote about our horrible tiny (and colorful!) master bathroom shower and how we ripped it out here!
In this beach house, we have another tiled shower that will need to be replaced…but that’s not what we prioritized.
Long story short, the fireplace made sense for
- Timing reasons.
- Feasibility reasons.
- Cost reasons.
- Benefit reasons!
The biggest benefit of all (above cost and timing) being “Jessica’s brain won’t shrink in horror the 187 times a day she has to pass by this fireplace and therefore will be able to be a better wife, mother and designer with optimized neural activity.”
If you’re new to our site, you’ll soon learn about how deeply your environment affects you (it’s a scientific fact)…
…and while it affects us all, some of us are more conscious of it than others.
That being said, sometimes we do have to live with “distractions” to our brain because of cost or timing reasons. Sometimes it’s NOT the best time to renovate something right before you move in! (Often we actually advise to live in the space before making changes to see how you live with X door flowing into Y space, for example.)
Many of the things homeowners think they want change dramatically once they actually live in the home!
And we’re here to help you AVOID REGRET! 🙂
Some things, however, are genius moves to do before you move into a space…and this fireplace (for us) was one of them. And no regrets here!
Redoing the floors…moving walls…adding doors and windows in various spaces…interior and exterior changes…all that is still to come! We’ll do it while living here…
FIREPLACE DESIGN SOLUTIONS
3 Options for Our Fireplace Design!
I did consider doing a stunning stone fireplace at first, but after going through my #1 and #2 steps for every room (yes, I have to work through my own guides sometimes so I don’t get carried into Crazy Designer Homeowner Wants Everything Land!)…
…I made some decisions.
- I decided on a plaster-style fireplace to go with our California-Spanish interior flavor.
- We’ve done THESE type of plaster fireplace designs for clients before, so I had near-unlimited designs to choose from! (My head is full of even more than I show in that post! 🙂 )
Below are the 3 sub-categories I had to decide between…
FIREPLACE REMODEL BEFORE & AFTER
Option #3: Arched Plaster Fireplace!
My first off-the-cuff thought (without any design analysis) was to do an arched plaster fireplace.
After all, we wanted to go with THIS style in the beach house.
I love an arched fireplace in a Mediterranean or Spanish-style home.
Arches don’t make sense in most homes…but they do make sense when they’re repeated and fit in with the architecture.
TILE FIREPLACE MAKEOVER
Option #2: Plaster Fireplace With a Mantel!
If you have room for a mantel, great—but I wasn’t quite sure whether a mantel would take up some much-needed space in our weirdly-shaped living room!
FIREPLACE REMODEL
Option #1: Plaster Fireplace Without a Mantel!
The biggest pro of this (for us in this situation) is more floor space.
If you have a massive living room or bedroom where every inch does not matter, then definitely do a mantel! You never know if you’ll want to add it later and much easier to do it now.
However, if space is key (and you’ll need to have your Room Layout Plan FIRST before making this decision! YES, whether or not to have a mantel on the fireplace has to be decided along with your room layout HERE!)
BEFORE & AFTER FIREPLACE REMODEL
Want To See What We Chose (and How We Did It)?
Next, we’ll be showing you the Step-by-Step + Before & After HERE! (coming soon! if you’re not on our Insider’s List, you’ll want to get on there for free!)
In the meantime, check out Our Complete List of fireplace ideas, including
- Fireplace design ideas…
- Types & materials ideas…
- Low-cost to full reno ideas…
…all right HERE! (We narrowed it down into 1 page for you.😘)
PS: If you’re looking for design help by room or by topic, it’s organized on THIS page for you!
