Salvaged Fireplace Mantel/Surround {part one}

Happy midweek to you! Three days of summer  vacation and I can’t wait for summer camps to start. lol It may be a long summer. 🙂  To keep from going “batty” (as my husband says), I have plenty of projects on my list.  Currently I am focusing on our family room.  It is on the bottom level of our three story rental and is pretty much a white box.  No molding, industrial carpet, ufo light (you can find my solution for that here), and tan plastic blinds. Yuck. We are missing our fireplace from our last house and have talked about creating a fireplace for a while now.  Last week, one of my local shops contacted me about a salvaged fireplace surround that had been pulled from an old farmhouse.  I took one look and fell in love.  After failing to get it into my VW, my friend put it into her SUV and brought it to it’s second home.

Here is what my husband and I did before we carried it inside.

First, we sawed off about 12 inches of each leg to eliminate some rotten wood. 

Second, we pulled out excess nails and hammered the remaining ones flush.

I lightly sanded the entire piece down before painting it. 

I knew after seeing it for the first time,  I wanted to paint the large panel with Poppies chalk paint/powder. (Yep, still love Poppies!)

After letting the coats of paint dry, my husband carried it inside.

I can’t wait to properly install and decorate it!  I suppose that will be the part two. Ha! 😉 Anyways, all of this happened within 24 hours of getting this home.  Such an exciting project, I just had to share what we did so far.

Have you ever repurposed a salvaged piece of architecture or furniture? I would love to hear any tips!