Visual Balance/ Aesthetics- add built-in's next to fireplace????
turnby
4 years ago
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Fireplace and built-ins-- Second guessing my design
Comments (28)Thanks architect! Love that design. I considered a similar layout, but decided to go a different route. Mostly because moving the fireplace down the wall would result in 8-9' of cabinetry on one side. Maybe it would have looked ok, but I wasn't sold on that piece being so LONG. So unfortunately, at this point, fp stays. Womp, womp. Do you have thoughts on where the shelving should stop in relation to the mantel? Does just below seem odd to you? Will cutting the 10' tall wall exactly in half look off?...See MoreNeed help with built-ins next to fireplace ???
Comments (22)We are putting swivel chairs on that side so you can easily watch tv/fire or turn and look at the water. Think we'll look for a console for tv. We don't want it up on the stone and not sure about hanging it on the wall. My husband has a lot of audio components to store below tv....See Morewhat do I do around this fireplace? make an accent wall? built ins?
Comments (34)To answer questions, yes we gutted and opened up this home. We want our family room just inside the front door as it functions well for watching children playing outside. (Rather than a formal living room, but we want to create a NICE space) The dining room has the fireplace and is open to the kitchen, which has an amazing 10’ island with a bar height side with 4 seats and then a counter height end for food prep. We’re loving the kitchen tho still waiting on light fixtures and backsplash. The flow is working well for us but the furniture placement and how to highlight the fireplace and it’s area is the challenge! Thank you BTW we DO have another room that would serve as the formal dining room but we don’t have that need at this time and are using it as a lovely home/mom office and playroom, so toys stay in there and not all over the house....See MoreWhitewashing a fireplace that is next to a built-in oak bookcase
Comments (8)Oh, that looks lovely but unfortunately a bench is out since there is not enough width between the wall and a window for it to make sense (you can see the edge of the curtain in my picture above). It's also a difficult living room for furniture arrangement since there are two double width door openings, one from the hall then one from the dining room with sliding pocket doors. The third wall has the fireplace and built in bookcase and the fourth is almost all window (but no direct light unfortunately). The idea of a second bookcase, I agree, would add more symmetry to that wall but I'm imagining it will be on the expensive side and we're trying to keep this low budget (hence the idea to whitewash). If I understand correctly, you feel we can't whitewash without painting the bookcase and mantel and even then you feel we would need to add something (bookcase or bench) to the opposite side of the fireplace. One other idea we had was to leave the fireplace unpainted but add an oak board that we would stain the same color as the mantel to cover up the top three rows of bricks (including the vertical ones that stick out) making it less busy. I worry that even doing that, it won't be enough. Finally, what about adding a surround in wood? I'm supposing if we do that we would have to paint the mantel and bookcase a similar color, correct? And there would still be the problem of symmetry. I should mention that there is a lot of oak mouldings throughout the house. Some of these we have painted already as they were just too dark and with over 100 years of soot and dirt were going to be too difficult to clean. We did leave the mouldings of several of the doorframes and the pocket doors to the dining room in the natural oak. There are two built in oak china cabinets in the dining room which is why we were trying to preserve the oak bookcase. But the more I see pictures of painted bookcases, the more I'm tempted to paint ours. Here is something quite similar to ours. What do you think?...See Moreturnby
4 years agoturnby
4 years agoPatricia Colwell Consulting
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4 years ago
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