You really have to OVER-fill it in this step. We did a trial of this and just added mortar to fill the cracks and we were not able to achieve the same look. Pipe the mortar into every crack allowing it to spill onto the front a bit. Twist the open end together to close it off and apply steady pressure to the back of the piping bag with one hand while guiding the tip with the other. We started by adding 3 cups of water and then kept adding more until the mix was semi-stiff (think the consistency of mashed potatoes.)Ģ. You could add more for a darker/warmer look if you’d like!). For every 6 cups of dry mortar mix, we added 4 drops of BUFF concrete dye and 2 drop of CHARCOAL concrete dye (so it wasn’t SO stark white and blended with our wall a little better. Wire Brush Here’s how we did it! Mixing the Mortarġ. Pointing tool (we used a shim for this part) Quikrete Concrete Dye (optional: we used BUFF and Charcoal) White Large Stone and Tile Mortar (we used 1 and 1/4 bags for our fireplace) You can do this too! Here’s what you’ll need. It was so nice to be able to walk into the store with a short list and walk out (having only spent $108! on supplies) and immediately get started. But, “over-grouting” is still the term that I hear the most for this look. One note: I don’t really know what the technical term for this tutorial is because we’re not using grout (the crevices in the stone are much too large for grout) we’re using mortar. We spent about 14 hours from start to finish doing this project, but it wasn’t all active. The mortar WILL dry and is kind of time-sensitive to get right. I’d block out 1.5 days for this project (great for a weekend project!) because it’s not something that you can really start and stop. But it IS tedious and a little time consuming. I really wanted a softer, cottage-looking, over-grouted stone fireplace and with the new white walls in our bedroom, I knew a light mortar would only add to the look.įortunately this is a very inexpensive DIY (we spent around $100!!, but add $99 more if you don’t have a corded drill–linked ours below). I could go on and on and on but these were all of the inspiration photos I showed Chris during my thesis on why the fireplace in our bedroom wasn’t showing its full potential. I really fell for these because, to me (and I realize this is completely personal preference) I loved the look of the stone and the softness that the mortar brought. ![]() The examples I had saved went from almost completely washed in mortar… A mason added the stone in under two hours and all was right in the fireplace world again…almost.īesides the insert needing an update, I was so drawn to over-grouted stone fireplaces and had saved so many examples thinking our bedroom would be the perfect place to implement the look. We took quick steps to simplify it by removing the mantle and the sconces right off the bat, but the real challenge came when we removed the tray ceiling in our bedroom and were left with over a foot of space between the stone and new ceiling height.īut! I planned ahead! During the demo phase of our new dining room, they removed a bunch of stone that matched our fireplace (I imagine they were put in at the same time), and we saved it to use here. ![]() ![]() This is how it looked when we first moved in. It’s real local Idaho stone (not a veneer) and a modern cottage seems like it should have some stone in it–yes? So I’ve been on a personal mission to make it shine. We initially thought about tearing it out completely and re-doing it in a far simpler fashion, but against all odds–I’m attached to it. Our bedroom has undergone a lot of changes in the last six months, but I think our fireplace has gone through the most changes.
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