I have a fire place located in the center of the wall the width of my living room. The fire place is centered and is an odd size; it seems to be too small for the width of the room. I would like to reframe the fire place to increase its size to make it look more proportional to the room and on either side of the FP add built-ins.
I would like to built-ins to be lower cabinets and upper shelves.
To start off how would I determine a correct and pleasant looking final project? The width of my room is 17 feet, and the fire place is aprox 6 feet wide located in the center of this wall. So I have a space of aprox 5’6” on either side of the FP. I do not want the FP dwarfed by the built-ins. It needs to be proportional to the wall, built-ins and whole room.
Replies
I built a mantle for a fireplace a while back, both were a little unusual and I wasn't sure of how the appearance would work. I started with a normal scale drawing but to get a better picture, I drew my idea out to full scale on paper, cut it out, then placed it on the fireplace. I'm glad I did. My first try was too small in proportion.
Both the homeowner and I designed the mantle by looking at a lot of pictures and picking out elements that they liked and we thought were complimentary to the house. I had to work out the details of how it would be built and installed but both the customer and I knew exactly what we were shooting for. I think you'll find that a lot of cabinetmakers will draw certain things out to full size to help clarify proportions and construction techniques. It's known as a full scale layout. At times we may even do a mock up to verify particulars that aren't completely clear on paper. A little homework can pay off.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
I did the exact same thing nine years ago. The only difference was the mantle I removed was arguably proportional to wall's height and width.
I agree with Hammer's advice on creating mock-ups. I would start with a digital photo of the wall. Print the picture. A black and white print will work. Overlay onion paper, or its equivalent, on the picture and draw (in general form) the height, width and size of the mantel, cabinets and shelves. This will establish the general proportions.
As Hammer suggested, from a large piece of paper (or newspapers taped together) cut out the outline of the mantel and tape it to the wall. Keep adjusting its size and location until your satisfied. Once done, do the same for the cabinets. You can do the shelves as well, if you have the time or inclination.
Once you have the locations and dimensions, design the details of the various units.
If the fire box is small for the wall, and you want to increase it appearance, build the mantle you want. Expand the facia between the inside edges of the new mantle and the firebox with a dark mono-surface material. The victorians used black slate. In some recent versions I've seen blue stone. In a couple of old houses they painted the brick black. I also saw metal once, but I think it was a one piece fire place/stove, and was built into the wall. (I'm not sure metal is safe, or whether it would pass code.) The black surface creates the illusion of a larger opening, yet doesn't detract from the fire in the fire box.
Here's a picture of a job I did several years back. It meets the description you wrote in the OP. Feel free to copy it, as it was my design. I'm going off memory (which is pretty bad these days), but I believe the room was about 20' wide, and the mantel center section is 8', centered on the wall. The customer's original fireplace was also very skinny, and looked bad in the room. So, I did what you want to do...I rebuilt the whole wall, making the fireplace larger.
Jeff
Keep a few things in mind. First off thier is no real standard or set propotions. This is all a mater of personal choice.
Second keep in mind that you have a few things to keep track of. Frist is firebox size and this is not something you want to try and change as it would be very hard and pretty expensive. If it is Real Brick the cost would be nuts. If it is a manufactured job then you would still need to pull it out an replace it and most likely the chiminey also (they are scaled to work together)
Now if it is just the look of the chiminey (assuming it is not brick) then you can make it what ever size you want but...... Generally you would want to keep the width in propotion not to the wall it is on but to the height of the wall. Chimineys normally are taller then they are wide so if you have a 8 foot room you normally would not want to go much more then 5 or 6 ft in general. To get around this what I have done is to make the chiminey 4 to 6 ft (depending on fire box) and to make it stick out a bit more then the cabinets on either side then to make cabinets take up the space needed to feel right on the wall. This way the lines of the chiminey still form the correct looking width to height ratio.
Also when messing around with fireplaces keep in mind that most states building codes have a LOT of restrictions on what you can an can not do. Thier is a set distance out that a mantal can be depending on how close it is to the fire place opening and the same holds true for wood on either side of said opening. Also if you are messing around with the fireplace you may be expected to bring the harth up to code and the size of this depends on the opening size of the fire place. All of this can be found in your states code book.
So thier are a few things to keep in mind when messing with fireplaces. Right now I am putting up a temporary mantal over my fireplace in my library as I am tired of looking at a blank wall. And when that is done I will put up the thin brick that I have for the other side of the fire place (it is a doube sided job) in the living room. The reason the library is getting a temp job is that I do not have the money to but up the wood panels that are supposed to go on the fireplace at this time. The economy is not go for designers in michigan right now.
Doug M
Doug,Currently the fireplace I have is a gas log low vent type of FP. It utilizes double wall vent piping. As you can see in the picture it has just been furred out by drywall. So my thoughts was just to extend the sides some on each side to increase the over all size and then drywall the whole thing.As you can see in the picture, the fireplace has black stone on the front to make it look larger. and the mantle that is installed was done at the time of construction and it seems like more of an after thought. It has a decorative surround however it you look at the mantle it is just a piece of 1x6, no edging or anything, heck it is a little concave and is starting to pull away from the wall.
Jeff,thanks this is what I was looking for. Look below in my response to "Doug" for a picture of the wall of which I am speaking.If you have any other thought or pointers please let me know.Chris
If you are looking to create a floor to ceiling woodworking project on this wall, the first thing you want to do is design your mantel. If you are going to have columns on both sides of the firebox, with the mantel 'sitting' on top, then the width of your columns (outside left to outside right) plus the extension both left and right of whatever crown moulding you choose to transition up to the mantel shelf, will determine the overall width of the fireplace section of your design.I typically use columns in the 6" to 8" width range, depending on the size of the project. In your case, 6" should be just about perfect. With these measurements in mind, it's easy to figure out how wide the center section should be.Here's another pic of a fireplace surround I built that required extending the walls left and right of the firebox to allow for a properly dimensioned build.Jeff
I already have a pre-built mantle with posts that are about 6 inches wide.I did not know that if I should increase the width of the wall to just accept this mantle or add more to increase the wall a little more to add a little bit more proportion. I calculated that I would need to add about a foot of total width to the build out to just accept the mantle. (6 inches on each side)
Rip a little story stick material off some long 2x stock.
Draw the built-ins full size on butcher paper (yellow trace, etc.) and hang the sheets on the wall. Alternatively, just draw delineations of the major components (not all the detail) and hang those sheets on the wall to evaluate proportion. A lot of times you can hang the blank paper on the wall and use a yard stick and pencil to sketch in enough, as it hangs, to get a read on the overall dimensions. Make your story stick while the paper is on the wall, take it to the shop, get to work.
Edited 10/2/2009 1:01 pm ET by CStanford
To start off how would I determine a correct and pleasant looking final project?
I would say some cardboard you can get in flat sheets and make a mock-up... I get 4X4 cardboard from a local moving place that works. And with a really good Razor knife, straight edge and packing tape, what wonders you can make!
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