DIY Fireplace and Bookshelf Build
Discussion
Hi,
Family and I moved from the UK to the US about 1.5 years ago, and bought a house out here in April. I have always enjoyed working with wood and being able to do work myself, and access to tools and materials in the US just seems so much greater. So in June I decided I wanted to add bookshelves either side of the living room fireplace; that idea then grew into redoing the fireplace surround itself, then I decided while I was at it we should add an outlet and HDMI port for a TV as well, replace the lighting, paint all the walls and change the carpet out!
Despite having never done anything of this size before, I decided to do as much of it myself as possible, and in the end did everything except the painting (because I hate painting), the lighting (because I didn't want to break my neck), and the carpet (because I'm lazy).
The whole thing has taken me about six months, mainly because I'm really very incompetent, but also because I work out of town during the week, and have a one-year old daughter who I want to spend time with during the weekend. And of course when she's asleep I can't make any noise, the net result being I have had about an hour a week to work on this...
But in the end we have gone from this:
To this (obviously we will cover the outlets with a plate when the paint dries):
I had a rough order of operations in my head: first I would redo the fireplace, then run the electrical to a new outlet, then the cabinets, then the bookshelves. Having never tried to build anything that would require this level of precision (which, admittedly, is still not that precise) I decided to prototype the fireplace surround before demolishing. Used 1x3 poplar and a sheet of MDF to come up with this look which I used to get approval from the wife to carry on:
I then built out v1 of the fireplace woodwork and laid it out in the garage, again just to reassure myself that I wasn't getting in too deep. Having no capacity for original thought and no real style, I decided a shaker style look would be both attractive enough and easy enough for me to tackle. In this version (I had to build another version, more to follow on that) the MDF backing was glued to a rabbet cut in the poplar uprights, and the side pieces were connected to the face plates using pocket screws:
Satisfied with the look, and confident enough that I could finish what I was starting, I tore into the existing fireplace and everything above it:
And then added drywall board to provide surface for the smaller tiles we had chosen to purchase on:
I used 2x6 construction lumber and chipboard to build out what would become the hearth, and secured to the floor by screwing it through the subfloor and into the joists:
I then decided drywall was a bad idea in such close proximity to a gas fireplace. I tore it out, along with some of the original drywall which was placed there before building codes put a minimum distance between fireplace and combustable material, and replaced with backer board:
Many weeks of deliberation later, we landed on a tile, and I cut the tile and laid out the pattern on the floor.
I had never done tile before, so I have no shame in admitting that I had to do this twice. The first time my measurements were out by about half an inch, so no matter how I laid it, there was going to be a nasty gap somewhere. I had to tear the first attempt off the fireplace and had a very sleepless night wondering if I'd reached the limit of my competence. However, the next day brought significantly more success, and despite having wasted about $300 of marble tile, I was happy enough with the result.
The hearth tile was much easier. We had originally wanted a slate slab but the price was ridiculous, so we went with three slate tiles. The uprights in the image below were just there so I could see how it would look - somewhat of a morale booster.
I then tore off all the decorative wainscoting from above the fireplace, and filled the holes etc.
Next was time to attach the fireplace surround to the wall. Using wood blocks screwed into the studs behind them, I nailed the uprights in place, and, using some makeshift holders, managed to nail the cross-member in place on my own
I then added the mantel, and happened upon some finishing trim that I rather liked. I also finished the edges of the hearth with the same style, again using poplar and MDF
Then it was time to tackle the electrical. For many, many reasons I am not posting pictures of how I did this. But broadly speaking here is what happened. The county I live in stipulates that all wiring has to be run within metal conduit, even inside a wall. Nobody can really explain why, and it's one of a handful of counties in the country that require it. As a result I couldn't simply fish wire down into the basement then back up, or up into the rafters and down. I had to cut the drywall from the socket to the right of the fireplace all the way up, across three or four studs, to where the new outlet was going to be. I then had to drill 1/4" holes through the studs (per the building code) and run metal clad cable between the two. The theory of the conduit is that the whole electrical system is grounded back to the box via the conduit itself; as a result, none of the outlets in this house have a ground wire. However, to be safe, I did run a ground wire from my new outlet back to the box I was tapping into.
Instead of trying to make everything look pretty, I drywalled the holes as best I could and then covered the area directly above the fireplace with a new 1/2" sheet of drywall. This was a job that would have taken a professional an hour or two, and it took me weeks, but I learned a ton:
At this point I started to notice some things about my fireplace build that I knew would bug me if I didn't address them. Chief among which was the fact that the cross-piece was about 1/4 inch further back on the right hand side than it was on the left. As a result, I burned another couple weeks effectively rebuilding the fireplace - I build a new face frame and nailed it in place, etc.. The results were much better, but given I was seriously pissed off at myself I didn't pause to take many pictures... In this version of the fireplace I decided to use a groove into which the MDF slid, which was much more robust but removed some thickness from the paneling.
Once I had corrected another of my mistakes, I could then start building the cabinets either side of the fireplace. Started by building a box at the base
Then, using 3/4" poplar ply, build the sides. I made face frames out of the same 1x3 poplar used for the fireplace (again, below just placed in the image for effect)
Then came the inset cabinet doors. The doors were joined using tongue and groove. By this point I was starting to feel well practiced.
And the cabinets were screwed and nailed together in place:
Finally the bookshelves. At this point I had been working for maybe four months on this project, and this was the part I actually wanted in the beginning! I started with a few sheets of 4'x8' ply (Poplar for the sides, oak for the back - because the hardware store ran out of poplar!)
I despise the look of adjustable shelving; I understand that it's more practical and in the end nobody really notices the little holes up and down the side of a shelf, but for me it just feel like Ikea furniture. So I decided to make my shelves permanent. I routed out the grooves across each of the sheets, trying to get them to match as close as possible:
It was at this point the wife said I had to be finished by Christmas. So unfortunately the camera went away. but essentially I made each shelf out of 1x9 solid poplar (they are 4' shelves, so I wanted solid wood to minimize sagging). I threw together a cross member to join the two sides and effectively box in my 1/2" drywall (with some additional drywall to fill the gap) and then continued the existing crown moulding from one side of the room to the other across the top of the bookshelves.
You'll notice as well below that there is a new hole in the wall with another HDMI. That's because I was stupid when I did the first one and only ran a standard HDMI cable, without leaving enough room to pull a second one through. This new cable runs up the face frame of the right hand cabinet, across the crown moulding, and down to the wall - means I will be able to pull anything through that I need to from now on, but a pain in the ass nevertheless
Next, filling, sanding, caulking. Again, this took much longer than it should have!
And the cabinet hardware
I also replaced all the baseboards but didn't bother to photograph that, it's too boring.
At this point I handed things over to the professionals. Carpet was installed, and we had an excellent contractor come and replace our ceiling fan light with pot lights, and then paint every surface including the cabinets themselves. I am so glad we paid someone to paint, as he got a finish I would have never been able (or bothered) to achieve.
I am about 80% happy with the outcome of this project. There are obviously things I would do differently if I started it again. I don't think I have done this better, faster, or even cheaper than if I had paid someone to do it, but I have learned an incredible amount and have seen the quality of my work improve from the start to the finish of this effort. I have a bit of a backlog of similar size projects yet to complete, so this has given me some confidence that I will be able to get a similarly acceptable finish with those.
Family and I moved from the UK to the US about 1.5 years ago, and bought a house out here in April. I have always enjoyed working with wood and being able to do work myself, and access to tools and materials in the US just seems so much greater. So in June I decided I wanted to add bookshelves either side of the living room fireplace; that idea then grew into redoing the fireplace surround itself, then I decided while I was at it we should add an outlet and HDMI port for a TV as well, replace the lighting, paint all the walls and change the carpet out!
Despite having never done anything of this size before, I decided to do as much of it myself as possible, and in the end did everything except the painting (because I hate painting), the lighting (because I didn't want to break my neck), and the carpet (because I'm lazy).
The whole thing has taken me about six months, mainly because I'm really very incompetent, but also because I work out of town during the week, and have a one-year old daughter who I want to spend time with during the weekend. And of course when she's asleep I can't make any noise, the net result being I have had about an hour a week to work on this...
But in the end we have gone from this:
To this (obviously we will cover the outlets with a plate when the paint dries):
I had a rough order of operations in my head: first I would redo the fireplace, then run the electrical to a new outlet, then the cabinets, then the bookshelves. Having never tried to build anything that would require this level of precision (which, admittedly, is still not that precise) I decided to prototype the fireplace surround before demolishing. Used 1x3 poplar and a sheet of MDF to come up with this look which I used to get approval from the wife to carry on:
I then built out v1 of the fireplace woodwork and laid it out in the garage, again just to reassure myself that I wasn't getting in too deep. Having no capacity for original thought and no real style, I decided a shaker style look would be both attractive enough and easy enough for me to tackle. In this version (I had to build another version, more to follow on that) the MDF backing was glued to a rabbet cut in the poplar uprights, and the side pieces were connected to the face plates using pocket screws:
Satisfied with the look, and confident enough that I could finish what I was starting, I tore into the existing fireplace and everything above it:
And then added drywall board to provide surface for the smaller tiles we had chosen to purchase on:
I used 2x6 construction lumber and chipboard to build out what would become the hearth, and secured to the floor by screwing it through the subfloor and into the joists:
I then decided drywall was a bad idea in such close proximity to a gas fireplace. I tore it out, along with some of the original drywall which was placed there before building codes put a minimum distance between fireplace and combustable material, and replaced with backer board:
Many weeks of deliberation later, we landed on a tile, and I cut the tile and laid out the pattern on the floor.
I had never done tile before, so I have no shame in admitting that I had to do this twice. The first time my measurements were out by about half an inch, so no matter how I laid it, there was going to be a nasty gap somewhere. I had to tear the first attempt off the fireplace and had a very sleepless night wondering if I'd reached the limit of my competence. However, the next day brought significantly more success, and despite having wasted about $300 of marble tile, I was happy enough with the result.
The hearth tile was much easier. We had originally wanted a slate slab but the price was ridiculous, so we went with three slate tiles. The uprights in the image below were just there so I could see how it would look - somewhat of a morale booster.
I then tore off all the decorative wainscoting from above the fireplace, and filled the holes etc.
Next was time to attach the fireplace surround to the wall. Using wood blocks screwed into the studs behind them, I nailed the uprights in place, and, using some makeshift holders, managed to nail the cross-member in place on my own
I then added the mantel, and happened upon some finishing trim that I rather liked. I also finished the edges of the hearth with the same style, again using poplar and MDF
Then it was time to tackle the electrical. For many, many reasons I am not posting pictures of how I did this. But broadly speaking here is what happened. The county I live in stipulates that all wiring has to be run within metal conduit, even inside a wall. Nobody can really explain why, and it's one of a handful of counties in the country that require it. As a result I couldn't simply fish wire down into the basement then back up, or up into the rafters and down. I had to cut the drywall from the socket to the right of the fireplace all the way up, across three or four studs, to where the new outlet was going to be. I then had to drill 1/4" holes through the studs (per the building code) and run metal clad cable between the two. The theory of the conduit is that the whole electrical system is grounded back to the box via the conduit itself; as a result, none of the outlets in this house have a ground wire. However, to be safe, I did run a ground wire from my new outlet back to the box I was tapping into.
Instead of trying to make everything look pretty, I drywalled the holes as best I could and then covered the area directly above the fireplace with a new 1/2" sheet of drywall. This was a job that would have taken a professional an hour or two, and it took me weeks, but I learned a ton:
At this point I started to notice some things about my fireplace build that I knew would bug me if I didn't address them. Chief among which was the fact that the cross-piece was about 1/4 inch further back on the right hand side than it was on the left. As a result, I burned another couple weeks effectively rebuilding the fireplace - I build a new face frame and nailed it in place, etc.. The results were much better, but given I was seriously pissed off at myself I didn't pause to take many pictures... In this version of the fireplace I decided to use a groove into which the MDF slid, which was much more robust but removed some thickness from the paneling.
Once I had corrected another of my mistakes, I could then start building the cabinets either side of the fireplace. Started by building a box at the base
Then, using 3/4" poplar ply, build the sides. I made face frames out of the same 1x3 poplar used for the fireplace (again, below just placed in the image for effect)
Then came the inset cabinet doors. The doors were joined using tongue and groove. By this point I was starting to feel well practiced.
And the cabinets were screwed and nailed together in place:
Finally the bookshelves. At this point I had been working for maybe four months on this project, and this was the part I actually wanted in the beginning! I started with a few sheets of 4'x8' ply (Poplar for the sides, oak for the back - because the hardware store ran out of poplar!)
I despise the look of adjustable shelving; I understand that it's more practical and in the end nobody really notices the little holes up and down the side of a shelf, but for me it just feel like Ikea furniture. So I decided to make my shelves permanent. I routed out the grooves across each of the sheets, trying to get them to match as close as possible:
It was at this point the wife said I had to be finished by Christmas. So unfortunately the camera went away. but essentially I made each shelf out of 1x9 solid poplar (they are 4' shelves, so I wanted solid wood to minimize sagging). I threw together a cross member to join the two sides and effectively box in my 1/2" drywall (with some additional drywall to fill the gap) and then continued the existing crown moulding from one side of the room to the other across the top of the bookshelves.
You'll notice as well below that there is a new hole in the wall with another HDMI. That's because I was stupid when I did the first one and only ran a standard HDMI cable, without leaving enough room to pull a second one through. This new cable runs up the face frame of the right hand cabinet, across the crown moulding, and down to the wall - means I will be able to pull anything through that I need to from now on, but a pain in the ass nevertheless
Next, filling, sanding, caulking. Again, this took much longer than it should have!
And the cabinet hardware
I also replaced all the baseboards but didn't bother to photograph that, it's too boring.
At this point I handed things over to the professionals. Carpet was installed, and we had an excellent contractor come and replace our ceiling fan light with pot lights, and then paint every surface including the cabinets themselves. I am so glad we paid someone to paint, as he got a finish I would have never been able (or bothered) to achieve.
I am about 80% happy with the outcome of this project. There are obviously things I would do differently if I started it again. I don't think I have done this better, faster, or even cheaper than if I had paid someone to do it, but I have learned an incredible amount and have seen the quality of my work improve from the start to the finish of this effort. I have a bit of a backlog of similar size projects yet to complete, so this has given me some confidence that I will be able to get a similarly acceptable finish with those.
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