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Home reno and deco advice

VarinnVarinn Vancouver, BCRegistered User regular
We just installed some new hardwood bamboo flooring to replace our bunky old laminate. The new boards were 50% thicker than the old stuff and the underlay was thicker again so we ran into an issue with the fireplace being too low. We didn't have the tools or experience to deal with scribing and profiling the wood blocks around the stone, so we decided to build a hearth.

How should I go about this? We are thinking a raised hearth is the best method but our space is slightly narrow. I could easily pull off a standard rectangular profile quite easily with my abilities and tools as they are but I have a strong preference for a rounded front for appearance and for maintaining walkway space through our entrance.

Couple things to note. Of course it's obviously still a construction zone with the boxes of flooring that are aclimating for use in other rooms, missing baseboard trim, missing mouldings, etc. The walkway beside the chair is the main entrance to the house for guests which is why we don't want to crowd the doorway too much by making an oversized hearth. We are actively looking for something to replace the brown chair and coffee table with, plus there are some decorative pieces I didn't move back into place for the picture (area rug, plants, lamp, etc)

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An example of what I think would be nice (keep in mind I am not good at styling things)
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Posts

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited November 2016
    Yeah typically you want to match the hearth to the fireplace surround. You should be able to find the stone trim that's used there fairly easy, it's one of the more common ones. You might consider adding small shelves or a storage space underneath the hearth if possible, it doesn't look like you have a ton of room though, so maybe solid is better.

    Rectangle is fine for hearth, that's completely up to you (I like the hemisphere style you posted more tbh).

    As far as things go, laying hardwood is a lot harder than doing a hearth. You're just going to frame, lay some cement board, and then "tile" it.

    Edit: You will also want to figure out the trim style around the walls and hearth too, you might have to replace what you currently have (looks like it's still not on the wall yet). If you don't like quarter-round there's some different looks you can try too.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • VarinnVarinn Vancouver, BCRegistered User regular
    Input appreciated, we've been doing some thinking. Our old baseboard trim was about 3-1/2" tall and 7/16" thick and had a straight front with a slight taper in at the top inch. We're looking to go with something a little larger as our floors specced a slightly larger gap around the walls. I think we'll be going with 4" tall and 1/2" thick and it has a slightly more decorative curvature to the front styling with the same taper in up top, I feel it matches the crown moulding in theme.

    I really like your suggestion of adding shelves underneath, but I don't know if the firebox is high enough to make it work.

    I also came across this other style that we quite like, it would involve a little more trimwork to add a new "base" to the existing legs on the sides of the mantle (as in to go on the top of the tiled hearth). The nice thing about this one is it's well within my scope, the part I'm nervous about with the rounded one is I don't know the best way to scribe, cut, tile, etc the curvature (on both the front faces and the top). Matching the stone should be pretty easy, they are just the concrete style stick on pieces. Ignore the full resolution thing on this, when I try to get to the image source it leads to some horrid website I can't be bothered to search for it on.

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  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Yeah you could easily do something like that. Just a little bit of wood working and painting, you're going to be building around the old posts and making it looks like it was intentional. You could also just build a hearth between the posts. It's plenty wide enough.

    I like the stone look better, I don't much care for wood on a hearth (though it tends to be easier to clean than stone sometimes).

    Wrap around is better though.

    As for curving it, there's a lot of tutorials on how to do a curved stone face, you'll probably have to do a bit of masonry work to get it to look right. The slab can be any surface, some people like the concrete look, but it can be raw stone too.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • VarinnVarinn Vancouver, BCRegistered User regular
    Second to the other question we are looking at possibly adding a shelving/cabinet system of some kind under the bar counter on this wall. We used to have a set of bar stools in place but we found that we didn't use them. Our house is sorely lacking on main-floor storage especially in the kitchen so a little more here would be an enormous benefit. My thoughts are to have a system under the counter.

    Thoughts on this? To the left and under the light switches we were thinking a bench seat to add extra seating in the main area for when we have extra guests over.

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    cat
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  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    Honestly, where you're thinking of putting those shelves looks like it's not going to have much depth, which will severely limit the utility of the shelves.

    Unless you can cut into the drywall behind them somehow, I don't think they'll do you much good.

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Are you planning to only store like DVD cases in that shelving? Even cannibalizing the wall space you won't have much.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • ThroThro pgroome@penny-arcade.com Registered User regular
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Honestly, where you're thinking of putting those shelves looks like it's not going to have much depth, which will severely limit the utility of the shelves.

    Unless you can cut into the drywall behind them somehow, I don't think they'll do you much good.

    If I'm looking at that right, at the top is the depth of a 2x4, and there's a sink/cabinets on the other side the rest of the way down.

  • mtsmts Dr. Robot King Registered User regular
    intheory you could try to find a matching piece of whatever that counter top is that is wider than current and make it deeper

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  • BasarBasar IstanbulRegistered User regular
    mts wrote: »
    intheory you could try to find a matching piece of whatever that counter top is that is wider than current and make it deeper

    This. If you are going to place a bench that will most likely be wider than than the shelving space, you might as well just replace the counter top above the sink with a wider one and have shelves deeper than you are going to have with the current setup. This way the bench and shelving space can be aligned up front and you can utilize the counter top better as well.

    i live in a country with a batshit crazy president and no, english is not my first language

  • zepherinzepherin Russian warship, go fuck yourself Registered User regular
    I've got to ask. Why do you have 5 light switches on the wall? Did the cat make you do it?

  • VarinnVarinn Vancouver, BCRegistered User regular
    The cat can force us into many things, but we didn't build the house so that was not his doing ;) One switch toggles the blower in the fireplace, one for the light in the entrance lobby, and we have three different sets of lights in the area pocket lights, one for the dining table, and a couple halogen "spotlights".

    I measured under the counter and it's actually almost 7" depth to the bottom of the curve on the countertop (not to the frontmost edge). Still not much. I'd much prefer to drop the counter height and make it a flush height with the kitchen side but that's not in the budget this year.

    I'm thinking if I plan it right I could design it to be a suspended style with a gap between the cabinet to the floor, it would make it re-useable when we end up dropping the height down in a year or two.

    If a no go on that, considering the timeline does anyone have any suggestions between now and then? It's an otherwise barren wallspace that we need to do something with, but bar stools are not what we want.

  • mtsmts Dr. Robot King Registered User regular
    7" is respectable especially if you just make it a bookcase
    just throw up some of those strips that allow you to move the shelf up or down.

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