Faux German Smear Fireplace

Fireplace Makeover

Hello everyone! Welcome back to the blog.

Since we purchased our first home together I knew I'd want to do as many DIY projects and home makeovers myself as I could possible. I love crafting, and this is for sure a new way to express myself in another form. It's our home, and we definitely want to personalize it any way that we can to make it feel like home. Just look at this transformation! I'm so happy I did this, I love it.

Looking back at what it used to look like, make me love it even more. I'm so glad I just went ahead and did the fireplace. The fireplace was such a BIG project I had in mind, and I didn't know what to do with it. I wanted to re-locate it completely and change the rocks to brick or some other tile I preferred. In the reality, this is our starter home, not our forever home and I couldn't love my decision more. It saved us a lot of money by using what we had and it turned out amazing if you ask me.

I never would have come across this if I wasn't DM'ing someone on instagram who is decorating/creating her forever home. If you don't already, go follow "theunfilteredhomemaker" on instagram, her page is TO DIE FOR! She always posts so much inspiration, and she's my spirit animal when it comes to decorating early for holidays. I'm so glad and lucky I got in touch with her, she lead me to "nellyfriedel" who did a faux German Smear to her brick fireplace. Go to her saved stories and give it a watch. She gives such a great and easy to follow tutorial on how to do this.

With that being said, my fireplace was a little different and more challenging for me personally. It has rocks, not brick. So it's not flat like brick is so it was a lot tougher to get into the cracks between the rocks. I eventually purchased some disposable gloves to throw on and was just rubbing the "presto patch" between the rocks. I found this method to be the easiest for me because I got the look I wanted much easier. Nelly suggested using a ziplock bag to put it between the bricks, which I tried and it wasn't working out for me. So I'd scoop it with my spatula and rub it against the rocks that way. You don't want to completely cover the old look. I tried to create a distressed look, and keeping that in mind it was easy to get the look I was going for. As time went on I eventually started just wearing gloves and using my hands. This ended up being very messy, but turned out to be the easiest for myself personally.

Now this project could be completed in a day or two. However I took a couple of weeks. Personally I wanted to take my time with it being such a large focal point of my living room. I wanted to always have fresh eyes and a fresh look on the fireplace. The time I took to do this project was so worth it because it helped make sure I ended up with a look I loved. I couldn't be happier with my decision, it really looks amazing. Enjoy some photos I took throughout the process!

xo
The Casbarro's