Fireplace Makeover: Shiplap to Roman Clay

Surprise, we moved!!! This has been a long time in the making, starting from a casual house and builder search in January to now. It’s been almost a month of making this new spec house into our home, and we are absolutely loving the extra space, light, and all the possibilities for new projects! I have been busy planning several projects prior to even closing, and we have been working on them simultaneously ever since. Fittingly, the very first DIY we tackled and finished was the fireplace, just like our first house! This post is all about how we transformed the shiplap fireplace into a delicious earthy, concrete-looking one using roman clay.

Before: The Shiplap

I have to be honest. I love a good shiplap (or skinny lap) wall, especially if they’re placed vertically. However, I really wasn’t feeling the horizontal shiplap fireplace that the house came with. It may have worked if I wanted to lean into a farmhouse aesthetic, but I’m envisioning something more organic and earthy with a touch of traditional.

Something I thought long and hard about was how exactly to go about this. Applying the clay on top of the shiplap was going to be the best option given the quartz surrounding the fireplace. As for filling the gaps between the planks, we considered caulk, flexible joint compound, filling it with small pieces of MDF… then Matthew had a simple and brilliant idea of just using leftover drywall tape we had!

1. Apply drywall tape over the gaps

We tested out a small spot and it seemed to hold well. Also applied painter’s tape on the floors, walls, and ceiling to protect against joint compound and roman clay.

2. Skim coat to create a flat surface

Next, we applied joint compound over the drywall tape and covered most of the shiplap planks to create a flat surface for the roman clay. Light sanding at the end.

3. Apply roman clay

We sourced our roman clay from Portola Paints, and the color we chose was Burrow. It seemed like a pretty neutral light gray that you can’t go wrong with, and we were right. I considered going dark dark, as well as some of the other medium grays, but it was hard to tell which ones would read warm vs. cool over the screen. Burrow worked out great for us!

We applied the clay with putty knives. Plastic ones worked better in my opinion than metal ones. Roman clay was also a lot thinner than expected, almost like paint! A total of 3 coats got the job done, although I may go back and sand down some areas and apply more in others to create additional variation in the clay.

The Reveal

We love how it turned out. I hope these “after” photos inspire you to make a change in your own home (yes, even if it is a new build)!

We obviously have a long ways to go in terms of furnishing our new home, but we’re making good progress! I’m intentionally taking things more slowly than I did at our old place to really understand what our needs are and letting the space speak to me. For now, we are making it work with our old furniture and excited to see how things change!