An Unexpected Disaster Leads to a Gorgeous Fireplace Renovation

A fire in your fireplace is exactly what you expect. A fire outside of your fireplace unit though—no thanks.

Anna Jacobs was working from her Bend, Oregon, home (@littlecitybungalow on Instagram) when she turned her unit on for the first time in a few months. Soon after, flames materialized outside of the fireplace. “There were flames coming out of the top of the unit, where flames should not be,” Jacobs says.

“What happened, we’re not really sure,” she says. “It’s a mystery.” Fortunately, with a little help from the Bend Fire Department, this home and all inside were all safe and unharmed.

Before the fire, Jacobs and her partner, Damian Schmitt, weren’t planning on renovating their fireplace, as they had just remodeled a couple years prior. But now they had a budget of $8,000 from an insurance settlement, and the opportunity to design the fireplace of their dreams.

When Jacobs and Schmitt moved into their 1940s home nearly three years ago, replacing their fireplace was at the top of their to-do list. “It was originally this bulky, ugly stone,” Jacobs recalls. The pair did everything they could to minimize the size of their first fireplace—reduced the height, removed the mantel—but still, it overwhelmed their small living room.

So, Jacobs and Schmitt planned to remove the stone and face the fireplace with large, dark gray slate tiles. “Then we did it and I didn’t love it,” Jacobs says. The slate tiles were too big and too dark for their otherwise bright and minimal living room; they overpowered the space.

Following the fire, Jacobs seized the opportunity to reimagine a fireplace that better complemented her home’s warm, inviting style. “After the fire I knew I wanted something that would make the fireplace feel softer and better scaled to our small living room,” Jacobs says. “I also wanted the gas fireplace insert to stand out more, instead of blend in with the face, so it felt more intentional.”

Jacobs and Schmitt worked alongside their local Heat & Glo dealer, Fireside Home Solutions, to select Heat & Glo’s Escape gas fireplace insert. Their design goal was to pair a clean and minimal face with sleek and subtle marble-tumbled triangle tile. Throughout the construction process, their goal was on track—until, after tiling and installing the mantel, they admired their hard work and noticed something was a little off.

“We stepped back and thought, ‘Oh no, it’s off center.’” The slate in their previous fireplace design had covered the surface enough that it disguised the unbalanced sides, but there was no mistaking it now, with their new tiled design. Even though it was only an inch off, the off-centered-ness was quite noticeable, so a new game plan to remove a row of tile and make a last-minute modification to the mantel was put into place.

“We learned a lot of lessons,” Jacobs says of their fireplace facelift journey. Now Jacobs can rest easy, using her renovated fireplace as a locale for her morning stretches and a place to warm her hands after dog walks. It’s brighter, softer and accents the other decor instead of competing with it. “And to think I almost didn’t put an insert in and thought about just adding decorative logs!”