DIY Pebble Mosaic Fireplace: Fireplace Update

My sister Allie is back on the blog today sharing her DIY fireplace update! You may remember her travel blog post about her non-traditional European Honeymoon. I’m quite proud of her for this one. Take a look!

Hello! It’s Brooke’s little sister, Allie. I am great at planning trips, excellent at communicating with children, and am becoming a proficient chef. I am not a DIY-er. One of our home purchasing requirements was a house that didn’t need a lot of work, and once I didn’t change a light bulb in the (windowless) laundry room for 3 months because it required a ladder and screwdriver. So if I can do this, you can do this.

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I re-did my fireplace with as few tools as possible, and it looks amazing.

Here’s the BEFORE:

UGH. I hated it.

Step 1: Choose your stones

I chose stones because you have to cut tile, which requires a “wet saw”, so loose stones was really the only option. I used stones similar to this pack from Lowe’s. There are also lots of options on Amazon. I picked all the stones off the netting individually so it wouldn’t look like tile squares, and I am so glad that I did. No tricks here, put on a TV show and peel away.

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Step 2: Prepare the space

I chose not to remove the original fireplace tiles because it required a small-scale jackhammer, and so I just sanded them down with sandpaper and decided it was good enough. When you tape the wall, tape to where the grout will go up to, not at the base of the tile (which I did, and it resulted in me taking a dental tool and picking out all the little pieces of tape- stupid stupid stupid!). You can hold one of your stones up to see how high it will go and that will give you a reference to where you should tape.

Step 3: Mortar

I got pre-mixed mortar from Home Depot and a spreader. I put the mortar on in about 2×1 foot sections and stuck my rocks on. When you place the rocks, you want them very close but not quite touching. The rocks that are too far apart or touching will be difficult to grout later (see picture in Step 5 where I got hungry for lunch and started sticking stones too far apart- I was cursing myself when I started grouting!)

Wait 48 hours or so before beginning the next step.

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Step 4: Stone sealer

I applied a stone sealer so the grout wouldn’t stick to the rocks as much. It still seemed to stick for me, but maybe it helped?

Step 5: Grout

Welcome to the next 2-4 days of your life. Or at least it was for me! I bought the pre-mixed grout (pay attention to the color of course) and watched many Youtube videos on the subject.

You take your grout float, put the grout on the rocks, and spread it out in different angles to fill in the gaps. I worked in a 1×1 foot block at a time, and you’ll want to start at the top and work your way down.

Then, you let sit for 10 minutes and take a sponge that is damp and wipe the grout off the rocks. If you wait too long the grout will stick, and if you sponge too soon it will scrape the grout out from in between the rocks. You’ll need to dip the sponge often and dump and get clean water from your bucket frequently.

Once the grout looked smooth, I still had to take paper towel and individually wipe off every rock. Once the grout dried the next day, on most rocks I still had to take a putty knife and scrape off the excess grout, which was easy but time intensive.

Step 6: Fix holes

There were holes that I filled in with grout between the rocks. I was able to follow the same procedure as above, but I used my finger instead of the grout float. Because I was tiling over tile, I also had to grout the inside edge of the fireplace and around the edges of the carpet so you couldn’t see the edge of the old tile. We have to be careful with the bottom edge because there isn’t anything holding the grout in.

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Full disclosure- it has already started flaking away in couple places, but still looks fine because I just see the rock edge. Thinking about caulking the edge to reinforce it, but I’m open to suggestions?

Step 7: Seal again

Seal again with the grout/stone sealer after you’ve made sure you got all (most) of the grout off the rocks with the putty knife.

Step 8: Freshen up with paint

I painted the whole fireplace wall white, which makes the area a focal point of the room. I was so happy with the results!

One more time, here is the BEFORE…

And here is the AFTER!!!

Step 9: Turn on your fireplace and enjoy!

This project made our house seem warmer with the added texture, and gave it a little update it needed. Even though it took way longer than expected, I would do it again.

Special thanks to my husband Derek for being project manager- which we all know means offering ideas, critiques, and encouraging words without any intention of helping.

You got this! Cheers!

DIY On,

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