Warming up with a new fireplace
When Heat and Glo Fireplaces reached out and offered to gift us a free electric fireplace from their gorgeous line, I knew exactly where it should go. Our bedroom is big and has this huge long wall in between a closet door and the en suite bathroom door. I had previously added a little visual interest to that wall with some board and batten, and we had this gigantic television that was a leftover from a previous room. Brian may disagree, but trust me, it was too big for a bedroom.
Our bedroom is big and has this huge long wall in between a closet door and the en suite bathroom door. I had previously added a little visual interest to that wall with some board and batten, and we had this gigantic television that was a leftover from a previous room. Brian may disagree, but trust me, it was too big for a bedroom. I found myself filling space with anything I could get my hands on.
Because we know this isn’t our forever house, I’m always thinking about ROI and if something we’ll do will increase or decrease the value of the house. It won’t stop me from making this house a place I love, but I like to know the trade offs. For this, we learned that adding a fireplace to your home can increase your home value by $12k. Totally worth it, especially since we’re in New England. Plus, I know I get a little swoon-y when we look at homes with fireplaces in the bedroom.
In this post, I’ll walk you through step by step how we got this installed!
The Plan
Step 1: Plan!
We knew we wanted the Samsung Frame TV installed over the fireplace, and we weren’t sure if we wanted a mantel so we had to plan for both in addition to the fireplace.
The Frame TV is great if installed properly. I’m order for the tv to be so thin, they have a big box with it and you have to hide it. In this case, we built it in behind the tv screen.
With all of that, we planned out the studs and I also added a horizontal stud at the exact height I’d want a mantel if we did decide to add one. Spoiler alert, it looked silly without it.
Step 2: Build the Frame
We floated our floors so we didn’t want to build the frame on top of them so we cut out some of the flooring. The board and batten will all be covered as would the giant hole from the previous tv.
My only regret is not taking this chance to hide a fake human skeleton in this little box.
Step 3: Finish the Frame!
You can see where we added the horizontal stud for the mantel. It was easy to place because mantels should be ~6” below whatever is hung above it.
Getting the fireplace installed was actually the easiest part - just slide and screw in!
We had an electrician out to wire it in because we needed the extra voltage.
Step 4: Drywall!
You can get a good look at the box to hold the Frame TV box - all wired and ready to go!
Finally! Plastered and ready to paint. We only brought the baseboards and top molding around and not the full board and batten as that would have been too busy.
And then the mantel…
This whole structure is only 12 inches out from the wall and we wanted to keep it shallow. The mantels I found online were all about 6” deep. Which would have looked silly from the profile view. We also didn’t need to actually put anything big on the mantel which means I needed a smaller option,
So, I grabbed a finished newel post from Lowe’s and chopped off the decorative end. The post is 3.5”x3.5” so a perfect fit. This was easily attached with a floating shelf bracket kit!
We absolutely love the final product and it’s keeping us so warm and cozy!
