I think it's time for me to get and learn "Sketchup".

I probably shouldn't be even thinking about this, but I really want to do something with my family room. A couple years ago, I removed my mantle and mounted my flat screen TV on the wall above the fireplace. I wasn't sure how well it was going to work, but we love it. It's the perfect height and there are no heat issues. My family room is roughly 13-1/2' wide by about 20' long. The entire end wall of the room is a brick fireplace with a raised hearth. It's just too much!

For about a year, I've been thinking about removing the brick down about half way and framing out above that and putting up drywall. That will give me a space to run wires and flush mount the front and center channel speakers. But over the weekend, my wife went to the library and brought home several books on arts and crafts style furniture design. In one of them, there's a picture of a family room transformation. It was a 70's era family room with a fireplace much like ours, except it wasn't floor to ceiling and it wasn't the entire width of the room. There were book cases on either side of it. They did an arts and crafts style transformation and put cabinets on either side of the fireplace and connected them above with some panels. It looks AWESOME!

Well I'm getting giddy thinking about the possibilities. My brain is cranking away and I'm already visualizing losing at least half the height of the fireplace and removing about 34" of the hearth and fireplace on each side and replacing them with arts and crafts style cabinets. Then possibly even some wainscoting in the rest of the room in the same style. Well I do a lot of projects without even drawing up plans. I keep it all in my head and design as I go. But a project like this is much too complex for that so I think it's time for me to download and start working with Sketchup. I know it's going to take some time to learn, but I hope it will assist me in making the final design choices so I can visualize what the final outcome of the project will be.

I'll be sure to post pics of the project as it progresses. Wish me luck please!

John

This is one i will watch closely

something like this, john? it's a rendering from sketchup (podium) of the one wall of the living room of my casa burro project. hope this helps.

Well I downloaded Sketchup and started playing with it. It seems pretty nice and then I watched the getting started videos. It looks AMAZING! I can't wait to see what I can do with it.

Wow Dan!

That's cool. Very similar. I think that I'm going to start by just drawing up the room as it is. That will give me all of the existing dimensions. Then I can modify it with the new design.

if you need any help, drop me a line.

I'm glad your not looking to me for plans. I can't draw plans for didly. LOL

Have fun.

john if you dont get sketchup methods just ask for dave richards or get his dvd that tells all the basics and more he is an excellent teacher..

Thanks guys!

I've only been playing around with Sketchup for a little while and I'm slowly catching on. At this point, I think it will be invaluable for drawing plans for the cabinets that I want to build. I'll probably do the project in stages. I can do the demo myself. Once all of the brick demo is done, my buddy has a cousin who is a very good brick mason. I'll have him come in and do the finish work on the brick to get the fireplace to its finished size. Then I'll get the wiring done for power, speakers, etc. Then do the drywall work. At that point I'll have good dimensions to build my cabinets to.

The plan will probably call for just putting up a temporary wall a few feet in from the hearth and then covering it with plastic to keep the dust down. When the basic work is done, the temporary wall can come down.

I'm getting excited about this!

Hi John,

I'm glad that you are not going to have brick half way up. Dividing a wall so something is half way up and something else the rest of the way up is almost always a bad choice aesthetically.

Dividing a room so the left side is a mirror image of the right side is static and quite formal. It is a system that is used quite a bit because it is good. It is used predominantly for formal atmosphere. Examples would be formal living rooms, formal dining rooms, exteriors of formal government buildings, libraries, etc.

Doing something different on the right than the left is more casual. However, Here you do not want to split brickwork, paneling, etc. use in the middle of the room (example of more casual: brick 2/3 of the way across). This places the FP opening off center in the brick work. Or have cabinets on each side of the FP. However the cabinets are different heights and/or widths. Make some simple boxes, representing cabinets, in different sizes. Move them around, resize them, etc. and see how the look feels to you. The libraries and bookstores have a bazillion books, with lots of pictures of rooms with fireplaces. Go and look and you will find that it is a lot of fun! I did not look, however, I bet Google has a lot of pics of rooms with FPs. Facebook probably does also.

Dan, that is a great rendition. That kind of pic is great it lets you know where you want to (or don't want to) go. You have a "comfortable" color pallete. I wish I were that skilled with SketchUp.

Enjoy,

JimB

This is fun!

I've been playing with Sketchup for just a couple hours and I went through and watched the newbie videos again and it helped. It's already getting pretty comfortable to work with. Being able to draw things and see them in 3D really helps. When I get some concept drawings done, I'll post them here. That export function is pretty cool too.

+1 on Dave Richard's video. He game me some tips on a table design I posted a while ago. Saved me a whole bunch of time on other designs I've done since. Now if actually making stuff were as easy as Sketchup....

Here's another vote for Dave Richard's video! I had a mental block about some basic stuff and he steered me straight with some personal tutoring.

I think you guys are right, I'll probably pick up that DVD. It looks well worth it.