Remodeling Answers by Remodeling Guy

Question: Help!!  I would love to redo my fireplace mantel but I have no idea what to do about the fact that it is so high off the ground.  I would love to use travertine mosaic tiles or glass mosaic tiles but what can I do about the hearth/base of the fireplace being so high off the ground?  What material should I use to cover the wood to coordinate with mosaic tiles?  Please help!!  Any suggestions and advice would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance for your help and inspiration.

that's one high fireplace! but there is hope!

Answer:

Wow!  That’s one high fireplace.  I’d bet that the reason for this went something like this in the mind of the person who decided it should be this high: I do not want to (or can’t) bend down or get on my knees every time I want to stoke the fire or add a log.

There is actually an economic reason for having the fireplace low to the ground. Since heat rises, the lower it is in the room, the more efficiently it heats the entire space.  But that’s another story.  This question is a straight-up: what to do now?

My first thought was probably much like your frustrated findings that there is no hope.  But the more I looked at it with a bit of imagination, the more I thought that there is hope.  I think the existing “stuff” around the firebox is making it hard to see the real meat of the issue.

If this was my house, no kidding, I would tear all that off of there and THEN stare at it to come up with a design solution.  I think the grate is especially challenging so if nothing else, remove the fire screen from in front of the fireplace while you think design.

I think something like a lower hearth, only 10″ above the floor or so, then a candle-shelf or some other ingenious bit of fireproof functionality in the space left between the mantle and the firebox.  I think I’ll try and make you a picture real quick…

Now I really did that quick… so please forgive the crooked lines etc.  I didn’t do any of them on purpose and I envision a pretty clean look on this so lots of sharp straight lines.

It is to scale though (traced from the picture you sent), so the proportions should be about right.  These ideas came to mind as I was doing this and they correspond to the numbers in the sketch…

1. The face of this little shelf has two really cool design possibilities. First, you could use it as a place to feature some really neat art tiles, such as hand blown glass tiles or some really cool fired ceramics.  Second idea was to make this shelf a little taller, dig out some wall space behind, and create a place for wood here.  But that would be more work than the first idea.

2. I think the top of this is perfect for candles, and far enough away from the fireplace to keep them from melting.  (most people use the candles in the summer and the real fire in the winter and take away the candles.  You could display some cool vessels of some sort here.  If going with glass tiles, this is more opportunity for some neat glass objects.

3.  The firebox is big and I don’t know what the inside looks like.  I think a new set of glass doors would be needed, with no metal if possible.  Just clear glass if the inside of the firebox looks good.

4. If you go with the clean sleek look, and use glass tiles on the fronts of everything then I think a nice clean wood mantle without any frill would work, maybe a dark color stain, or paint.

5. For some reason, and I didn’t have time to put this all together, the idea of a big slate hearth surface came to mind.  I’d have to work on balancing the look of slate with the glass, and the colors would all have to work, but some sort of honed stone might look good on both hearth shelf surfaces.

Just thoughts.  Hope they help.

Tim

{ 1 comment }