Finally! We have our bedroom back! Four months of being out of our moldy room, 1 jack hammer, 12 boxes of shingles, 3 quotes, 4 contractors, and thousands of dollars later we are done.
Quick recap: We discovered late this spring that we had some water issues in our bedroom ceiling, realizing it was at the joint of the chimney we had it inspected. Given conflicting opinions on what to do, we had to come up with what would be the best solution for the long-term which meant tearing down the chimney. We hated losing that awesome feature in the room so we opted for a gas fireplace to help heat the house with propane (there’s no natural gas on the street so we’re stuck with oil) and still keep some character.
Here is the before:
the bedroom before the tear down
Here is the repaired room:
repaired wall
The finished wall
And here is the after (drool warning):
We loved these colors from when we were in Santorini on our honeymoon, clean, calming and coastal inspired. I had written a post about that inspiration if you want to check it out (click here). How did we do?
Mini track lights were added above the beams to up-light the ceiling and a 3 blade ceiling fan for circulation. To not distract from the beams or make it too busy we kept it all white. The walls are a soft white with a hint of lavender-gray to it from Sherwin Williams called Oyster White.
The fireplace we installed was a Monessen 42″ Serenade. We love the river stones and clean modern look
We kept the original apron and mantle for a number of reasons. The mantel matched the beams, the apron split the baseboards which would be difficult to patch with their age, and the long lines of both worked well with our mid-century house. I found this amazing modern fireplace from Monessen that fit the proportions just right. It is an expensive unit, but with its blowers it can heat up to 2000 sq ft! This part of the house is on its own zone so we’ll use this as a major heat source. In addition, it’ll still heat the house in the winter if we lose power. After last year’s blizzard, that is a huge plus in New England!
Keeping the apron also let us have the fireplace higher off the floor which helps with the room’s height as well as viewing height from our bed which is a King with a high bed frame.
The sitting area is made so much nicer leading out the slider to our patio or to cozy up by the fire in the winter.
Here we are, four months later. Instead of dreading our bedroom I have a hard time leaving! Sometimes it’s easier to just work from there!
Now this is a comfy work station!
well scituated 