DIY – THE FIELDS HOME

Originally, to save money, we were going to shiplap the fireplace and then a few years from now we would upgrade to stone. I put a poll on Instagram asking people to vote between stone and shiplap and most people voted stone. From there, Brent and I had a chat and decided to do what we actually wanted rather than a temporary solution. Side note, those Instagram polls really help me, I usually have my mind made up but I like hearing everyone’s opinions.
We had the fireplace installed by The Fireplace Center in Ottawa. I won’t really get into it but perhaps the worst experience I’ve ever had as a consumer. The installers were absolute hacks and did a horrible job. They eventually came back to fix it but only after the owner insulted me and asked to speak with a man. Needless to say, don’t order from them.
For reference, our the stone wall is 16′ high, 2.5′ deep and a little over 6′ wide. We had a quote from a mason to install the stone and he would have been $3000 cash. Unfortunately that was out of our budget so poor Brent now has no fingerprints left because the laying the stone wore them off. 😦

Cost Breakdown

Fireplace + Chimney + Installation $8002

Framing $297

Hearth $368

Stone + Mortar $2794

Mantle $92

Total $11,554

Sources

Valcourt FP10 with Crown Style Faceplace, here.

Natural Indiana limestone hearth with rubble edges cut to size, here.

Canadian Stone Industries, Cultured stone, Sculpted Ashlar in Silver Shore, here.

Douglas fir mantle, left natural, here.

Fireplace before. We. framed with steel studs. The hearth is about a foot high.

I don’t have a picture but once it was sheeted, we added a steel mesh.

This is the brochure images of the stone we went with

For the tv we left a patch bare. The tv actually does not plug into the wall there. We had to run a pipe down the basement to plug in the Samsung box.

Stone progress. Brent did a nice job at randomly laying the stone.

Progress and living in dust 🙂 I am head of clean-up

Finished! The grout is still wet in these pictures

I was naive about the cost of stairs, I thought they were like $1000 and even forgot to include it in our original budget. I originally wanted the open style steps that have an iron frame with thick timber steps. Something like that starts at around $15,000. Needless to say I didn’t get what I wanted but we are happy with the result. Also, Brent didn’t want to do this job but I sort of made him. Sorry Brent.
Another oversight I had was that you need to pick out your flooring before you order your stairs. I thought we were going to have oak floors but we ultimately went with Maple. It’s not a huge deal but you can tell the grain difference.
We kept the staircase a natural colour but used finishing wax to seal the raw wood.

Cost Breakdown

Red Oak stairs $4504

Black Iron Balusters $442

Maple Posts and Handrail $1187

Total: $6133

Sources

*We bought through Home Hardware but they don’t have an online store. We also got a better price than what is listed on Rona.

Colonial Elegance Maple Square Newel Zen – 4” x 44” – Natural, here.

Colonial Elegance Maple “Zen” Half Newel, here.

Colonial Elegance “Zen” Straight baluster for horizontal section, here.

Colonial Elegance “Zen” Stair section straight baluster, here.

Finishing Wax, here.