The Lava Rock Fireplace.

S and I bought our first home a couple a months ago and since we're saving to knock down walls and get HGTV'ed - we've been doing smaller projects! We decided to makeover our very 1960's lava rock fireplace and get our TV finally mounted up above the fireplace. I researched (googled) the crap out of what could be done to cover the rock and in the end we decided to just paint it - how hard could it be right? Well let me tell you.... It took 10 hours just to get it primed. We used Behr primer from Home Depot and slopped it on in thick layers. It was like happy hour for lava rock as it seemed as if they were just drinking it all in. Here it is before and whilst priming.

Priming and looking better already!

It took us forever to decide on a colour to paint the fireplace - we started with what S liked to call 'bandaid' colour which was actually pretty gross. After buying 10,000 samples of paint, we decided on Behr's Cracked Pepper which is a lovely dark gray. It kind of hides our TV too which we hadn't really considered when we chose it. S's amazing dad who is handy man Binford 2000, built us a hearth out of some lovely oak. We stained it to match the woodworks in the house, created a custom colour called Barrett Brown ;P for underneath and we were done!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Isn't it wonderful, we took it out of the 60's to at least the 90's!

In regards to mounting the TV to the lava rock - don't believe what you read on forums etc. It can be done, as long as a couple of the mount holes are flush to some part of the rocks then it will work. We used a masonry drill bit and screws and the mount is only attached at 3 of the 6 points. You don't need  an expensive mount either, I think S's dad found ours for about 25 bucks on ebay.

I hope I'm making sense. I'm loving all this home upstyling business! More soon, I have been on a thrifting/craigslist binge and reworked some amazing furniture!

xxx