We are planning a similar project with our fireplace. Ours is painted brick and is a bit of an eyesore. What I am going to do is remove the brick from above the mantle, open up the wall behind the brick, and then run the wires and outlets in the wall and re-drywall.

In your case, if you can't remove the granite bricks, or do not want to because you like them, you have a couple of options.

Option #1 is to build a frame over the bricks above the mantle using 1x2 or 2x2 lumber. Attach the wood directly to the bricks by drilling and using lag bolts and anchors. You can then run the wires behind this "false" wall and conceal everything with new drywall. You will probably have to remove some bricks to have enough room to place wall outlets for power and cable jacks, but that should be able to be done fairly easy. You will also use the same framing technique if you choose to remove the bricks. Just mount the frame to the concrete blocks.

Option #2 is to try to rework the mantle area so you can conceal the wires. I am assuming you have a mantle. This can get tricky because of electrical code issues so you need to provide some more information about your situation to determine what could be done there.

Option #3 is what the installers recommended, which is a plastic channel to hide the wires, which I agree, doesn't look good.

OK...so i am going to try continue this thread after..umm...4.5 years!

From above post: "you can chop some grout out between the bricks and put your wires in there and re-grout with cement over that".

I would like to know if this is feasible in my case since it might be the way to go for me.

I have 7ft wide and 0.5 ft deep stone wall (rough surface) running from floor all the way to ceiling (high; 14ft or so). It appears there is an inch or two of concrete connecting the stones and the wall behind it. The goal is the same - put a tv on this wall above the fireplace. Doing the wiring by removing one of the stones and running electrical behind the tv is surely the best way, but the labor charges are above what i want to spend. So that brings to the question: Since there is a mantle which leaves only ~3inches of stone exposed (and hence the cable if i run it down behind the tv and behind the mantle) I have only 3inches cable exposed from front view and ~6inches from side view (depth of stone is 6in). Do you think i can remove some of the mortar mix in between the stones, run the extension cord cable + hdmi + cat5 through the groove, put a duct tape and cover it with matching (hopefully) mortar mix? Is it also possible to remove a little bit of that cement (vertically connecting the stones with the wall behind) and do the same concealing patchwork to run the wire down?

Let's see if anyone picks my ques

OK...so i am going to try continue this thread after..umm...4.5 years!

From above post: "you can chop some grout out between the bricks and put your wires in there and re-grout with cement over that".

I would like to know if this is feasible in my case since it might be the way to go for me.

I have 7ft wide and 0.5 ft deep stone wall (rough surface) running from floor all the way to ceiling (high; 14ft or so). It appears there is an inch or two of concrete connecting the stones and the wall behind it. The goal is the same - put a tv on this wall above the fireplace. Doing the wiring by removing one of the stones and running electrical behind the tv is surely the best way, but the labor charges are above what i want to spend. So that brings to the question: Since there is a mantle which leaves only ~3inches of stone exposed (and hence the cable if i run it down behind the tv and behind the mantle) I have only 3inches cable exposed from front view and ~6inches from side view (depth of stone is 6in). Do you think i can remove some of the mortar mix in between the stones, run the extension cord cable + hdmi + cat5 through the groove, put a duct tape and cover it with matching (hopefully) mortar mix? Is it also possible to remove a little bit of that cement (vertically connecting the stones with the wall behind) and do the same concealing patchwork to run the wire down?

Let's see if anyone picks my ques

Take a photo and post it, it will be worth a thousand words. But what you describe to do sounds like it may work as long as the size of the cables will fit in the mortar joints and still have room to re mortar. If not you may have to create a second raceway for the wiring, which can be fairly thick.

And you are correct in saying mortar and not cement to re point.

I hope you do take a photo and post it. We have purchased a very small lake house with a HUGE stone fireplace. In addition to it being huge stone there is black mortar..YUCK! We are trying to figure out how to deal with this and if we can place our tv above the fp.

Here is a link that might be useful: picture of my fireplace

Twosit,

Start your own thread and post the photo. You will get a better response.

You can colour the existing mortar joints with latex paint.

Hey OP, did you ever do this? I am contemplating the SAME thing, i.e. grinding out tuckpointing and hiding hdmi and power in there, then covering with new mortar.

I am doing the same thing now, and fortunately for me, the brick above the fireplace is only one brick deep and is essentially a facade. When I removed the trim to the left and right of the brick, I discovered this and was able to run a yard stick all the way to the middle on both sides (the brick is 6' wide). As a result, I can drill a relatively large hole through the brick and run the wires behind it and to the bookshelves I'm building above new base cabinets I've constructed on each side. My house was built in 1983, so if yours is of similar age or younger, you might be able to do the same. Trim is easy to replace, don't worry if you break it.