The fireplace and fireplace walls are often a focal point of the living room, the space where many families spend most of their time while they’re at home, whether it’s entertaining guests or binging on Netflix.
That’s why, as you design the living room of your custom home—or you plan out a living room renovation for your existing home—you should think carefully about how you want to cover your fireplace walls. It’s an important decision to make and one that you should approach with both the aesthetics and the safety of the space in mind.
Valkeith Manor Project
The wall around your fireplace can work well as an accent wall, serving as an eye-catching and cozy centerpiece for your living room. An accent wall is one that stands out from other walls in the room because of its color, design or the materials that it’s made from.
At Arieli, we have a few favorite non-combustible materials that we like to use when we’re designing fireplace accent walls for our clients, either in a new custom home or if we’re updating a dated-looking fireplace during a renovation project.
Porcelain tile or slabs. Porcelain is fired at a high temperature and therefore does well near heat. Porcelain tiles come in an endless variety of colors and patterns. Tiles can be installed around your fireplace and matching ones can be placed in front of the fireplace on the floor. Porcelain slabs are durable, also come in a wide variety of patterns, and they can give your fireplace and fireplace walls a high-end, sleek look.
Large Porcelain Slabs For Your Next Renovation?
Ship lap from cementitious materials. Shilap is commonly known as a wooden board used as siding on barns, but it’s also used as a decorative item throughout a home—from the bedroom to the kitchen. Wooden boards, however, can’t be installed directly around a fireplace because materials surrounding a fireplace can’t be combustible. But the effect of shiplap can be recreated using painted cement boards, and it’s an attractive design option to consider for your fireplace walls.
Natural Stone slabs. Stone slabs can be visually pleasing and add interesting detail to your fireplace walls. Some of the most popular stones to use around a fireplace currently include marble, granite, limestone and even slate. This will not include Quartz Slabs that can be confused with natural stone. They are man-made and sensitive to temperature.
Concrete or stucco mix. Using concrete or stucco mix on a fireplace is a relatively inexpensive option that will give the walls around your fireplace a smooth, modern look.
As you research materials for your fireplace walls, always consult your fireplace manual first to see what materials you’re allowed to safely use and how far from the fireplace you have to install the materials. Remember that even electrical fireplaces have heat that collects above the device.
Once you’ve determined what materials are permitted to use around your fireplace, know that you can always combine and mix and match materials to create the exact look that you want and still comply with the proper safety requirements.
Two other considerations to keep in mind as you design your fireplace walls include:
Fireplace wall edges. You’ll need to think about what materials you want to use for the edges of your fireplace wall as well.
· With a tile and stucco fireplace wall, options include tile trim like those made by Schluter, which is a tile edge material that’s typically made from aluminum or PVC.
· With shiplap walls, wood trim often looks the best.
· With natural stone and porcelain slabs having a mitered edge, or one that comes together at a forty-five degree angle which looks clean and sleek. Mitered edges on Porcelain Slabs can be a problem in work areas like the kitchen since they’re fragile and susceptible to chipping if hit or bumped, but that shouldn’t be a problem on a fireplace wall.
Valkeith Manor Project
Support. Once you’ve chosen your materials for your fireplace wall, keep support in mind, too. A material like a large slab which is heavy will need additional support during installation.
Putting thought into how to design your fireplace walls—both safely and with an interesting design in mind—will help you to create a true focal point in your new living room that you’ll be able to enjoy for years to come.
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