Any way you stack it

Before starting a slew of main-floor upgrades during a six-week renovation, the homeowner wisely had their existing gas fireplace updated in anticipation of one of my final projects at this jobsite.

Once the vinyl plank flooring, new interior doors, baseboards and casings were installed, the esthetic aspects of the decorative fireplace wall could be addressed. The goal was to turn it into a showpiece in the living room space.

The old gas fireplace area was rather bland. When the homeowner decided to modernize it, they considered several options for tackling the area from floor to ceiling. The fireplace is situated at a 45-degree angle at the far end of the living room, and can easily be seen from anywhere on the main floor, so the homeowner wanted an upgrade that would dazzle.

After several days of research, a design layout was established and earth-tone stackable faux-stone was chosen, four inches high and of various lengths. Roughly 54 inches from the hearth, a custom stained wooden mantel would separate the fireplace face below from the upper column of stone to the ceiling. The hearth would be topped with a light grey flat stone, trimmed below with an inset baseboard stained to match the mantel.

While we kept the existing hearth framework, the ends were modified slightly to 45-degree angles to meet the walls. Installing the flat stones required several cuts to ensure the overlap did not exceed one-and-a-half inches, and they were mitred at each end to match the newly modified hearth framing. Once the hearth stones were in place, we covered them with cardboard to protect them during the stone wall installation.

The custom mantel was relatively easy to install. It was manufactured in two separate pieces: the inner support — a framework of 2x4s — was mounted on the main wall above the fireplace at the desired height, and the decorative mantel then just slid onto the framework. Once the mantel was mounted, there were slight adjustments to ensure it was centred along the wall face.

Stack-stone installation can be tedious. A temporary frame was built within the fireplace face trim to lend support to the stone above the face as the adhesive polymer set. Starting at the bottom, the height of the frame was measured to calculate the best height for the first row; you want to avoid winding up with a slim row of stone, because it’s very hard to cut without fracturing it. Based on four-inch heights of faux stone, the first row was cut back to roughly three inches. From then on, the four-inch stone was set in a staggered manner to conceal visible joint lines of adhesive.

Once the stack stone was complete on either side of the fireplace face, the first row of stones was placed above the fireplace face and along the top of the temporary frame, continuing to the underside of the mantel. What made this installation a bit tricky were the 45-degree walls on either side of the fireplace; every section of stack stone had to be mitred at a 45-degree angle to meet the walls on either side. It was time-consuming, but it did yield the best visual result.

Once small filler stones were introduced at each end of the mantel, the first through row was installed above the mantel. From this point on, the installation was systematic, and took about a third of the time to complete compared to half the amount of stone used around the fireplace face below the mantel. As luck would have it (although I almost took credit for it as incredibly precise planning), the last row at the ceiling happened to be exactly four inches high, which meant a full row of stone was installed end to end (shaving only a few stones along the way).

Although no grout or mortar was used, there were a few areas throughout the faux stone wall that revealed a hint of the back wall surface, due to imperfections in the stone ends. To remedy this issue, a light grey caulk-grout that closely matched the colour of the adhesive was squeezed into any visible gap to hide the back wall via a three-inch length of plastic straw taped to the end of the caulk-grout tube. The flexibility of the straw allowed us to penetrate even the narrowest of gaps with the caulk-grout. The process worked exceptionally well, and — voila! — the fireplace wall was complete, and it was a sight to behold.

Stack stone has become very popular, and comes in a wide variety of colours and styles. Often used as an exterior finish in co-operation with siding, or as a stand-alone feature, stack stone has turned many a dull space into a beautiful feature wall.

In this instance, the combination of stack stone and custom mantel above a newly upgraded gas fireplace looks fantastic.

RenoBoss.Inc@outlook.com