How do the details around a fancy fireplace come together? This 4 minute video will show you! Part 5 of our luxury brownstone renovation project in Carmel series features everything about the fireplace. It’s a little more than a box with some logs thrown in and we briefly discuss the details of this elegant feature in the room. In addition, we turn a door into a window. What does that mean? Learn the answer to this question and a few others as we continue to demystify the remodeling process.
Fireplaces today take on many shapes and sizes! They offer more than just heat to a room these days and this video will show the things we must consider for it all to properly come together. Before we talk about making a door look like a window, let’s talk about the fireplace.
What are the details that must be considered?
More than just worrying about the size of the firebox and what the logs will look like, we must consider a litany of issues. What type of mantle will be used? In this case, a full custom marble surround was made specifically to wrap the fireplace unit. Above the surround, there were 2 sconce lights flanking the TV (that is made to look like art) and around that was a decorative scribe trim intended to enhance the visual for the entire space. Every dimension had to be precisely planned for it to work. Did we have to move the sconce lights a bit and possibly redesign our trim detail when the marble surround was installed? Maybe… but we aren’t discussing that because it looks perfect now and you’ll never know we redid it! In fact, that’s what makes us cool is the fact we wanted it to be perfect and we made the necessary changes to make it look perfect!
How often does it happen that we have to redo something?
Rarely… but we aren’t too proud to correct a mistake. Rather, we think owning a mistake and making it right makes us a better partner.
Was this a common fireplace application?
The level of detail pulling together the heights of the surround with the trim and sconces and television all created what actually became a very complex system. What made it more difficult was the fact we had to preorder the custom marble surround, which drove every remaining detail once installed. In most applications, we are working with tile surrounds and mantle designs that seem to be a bit more forgiving during the installation process.
And what’s this door that looks like a window thing?
You’ll have to watch the video, but we had a door to a Juliet balcony (watch the video to learn what this looks like) and our goal was not to visually draw attention to the fact this is a door. Thus, we did everything possible to make it look like a window. We trimmed it out like the adjacent windows in the room. The client had fancy curtains made for all the windows and this opening received the same window treatments. We claim success and think you wouldn’t know it was a door if we didn’t tell you!