Hello once more, Jordan below! I’m again to share my Do-it-yourself faux hearth – how I built it, how it was designed and installed, and how I’ve styled it for the period in advance. Right away upon acquiring this home, I understood this wall needed a focal stage. It is the initial issue you see as you wander into the property, and in a modest space, I necessary it to be the two attractive and useful. Read through on to see what we came up with and how we manufactured my aspiration of obtaining a fireplace come legitimate!
When we moved into this residence, we owned totally no home furnishings other than our mattress and nightstands. For the first pair months, our residing place was furnished with two camping chairs and a $15 secondhand table, ha! We ultimately extra trim and window remedies- identical to the one’s we set up in our dark eco-friendly office makeover, and I found a sideboard on Facebook Marketplace that lived on this wall for over a calendar year. It was gorgeous & made available a small bit of storage, but when the vacations arrived all over, I was unfortunate to not have a mantel for my stockings, and my spouse, Todd, was eager to have a Tv set in our main dwelling space. As you may possibly know from my vacation house tour, I like to decorate for the vacations and knew I was going to have to figure out a way to create a fire.
Preparing & Building
Whilst I was not originally arranging to share this method, I hope these pictures and my descriptions present plenty of rationalization for any one hoping to deal with this venture! I began by measuring possible hearth and Television measurements with tape. This wall has two home windows on either side, and I required to preserve symmetry in the fire design. I remaining some area for our drapes on both facet, and we finished up with a fire that is 45″ tall and 58″ broad. Todd and I mentioned (argued about) Television sizes, and decided on the 50″ Samsung Body Tv, which we snagged throughout a sale. As you can see better on the wall, our house came with an outlet for a television set, which created factors really effortless when it came to installation!
Deciding on Components
Our following stage was to prepare the building and pick out components. I obtained the plan to resource a stone slab to act as the hearth. Following exploring some area stone fabricators, we discovered a neutral coloured quartz remnant that could be lower to the measurement we needed. Whilst I would have chosen a normal stone this kind of as marble or soapstone, we couldn’t conquer the cost of quartz. We acquired the entire piece for all over $60! Thanks to my Dad’s comprehensive instrument collection and expertise, we had been ready to lower and hone the stone at home, on a freezing chilly winter day.
For the fire inside, I desired to mimic the appear of a traditional brick firebox. I identified some tumbled travertine tile that we chose to lay in a herringbone pattern.
Development
Frankly, I am not the pro craftsman in the family… and neither is Todd (sorry, Todd). That title belongs to my father. I arrived up with the style, and my father worked out how to make it a actuality. The best way to describe how the mantel is designed, is to say that it is a box-within-a-box. We crafted the confront frame to the dimensions I drew up (height, width, and the dimension of the firebox cutout), hooked up the two sides, and then connected a further inverted box to the encounter body in which the tile would be installed. We did not connect a bottom piece, so the hearth would show. The pencil marks on the correct that you see in the photograph earlier mentioned show wherever we hooked up aid pieces in just the hearth (a pair on either side) to supply much more balance. Then we extra a top and ornamental moulding. We connected a skinny cove moulding to the inside front of the cutout to hide the edges of the tile that would sooner or later be installed. Then we got to work laying out the tile, adhering it to the back again, sides, and top of the firebox, and then grouted it all.
Installation
By the time the fireplace was completely ready to be installed, we had already hung our Tv set with all the cords hidden, which manufactured our fire installation brief and quick. Initially, we eliminated the baseboard that was in our way, and laid the quartz fireside on the floor, centered involving the windows. I’ll allow you in on a secret… that is fairly a great deal all we did for the fireplace. We lower a piece of laminate flooring underlayment to go beneath it, pushed it towards the drywall, and caulked it to the flooring. My wishlist for this property consists of ultimately changing the low-cost builder-installed grey flooring, and this will make it uncomplicated to consider out and set again when that time will come.
We then hooked up three 2x4s to the wall (1 horizontal to the ground at the top of the mantle, and two vertically alongside both aspect), anchored in studs. This allowed us to area the fireplace on prime of the fireside, then shoot some nails in by way of the sides and major of the mantle to connect it to the wall.
All that was left to do was fill holes, caulk (I ran caulk alongside the base of the mantle where it meets the fireplace), and paint! I picked Sherwin Williams Tricorn Black in semi-gloss.
The Remaining Result
Once anything was painted, I chosen a Tv frame, image light-weight from Tuesday Designed, and some outsized pillar candles from Crate & Barrel. The tallest candle is 16″ tall, and when they’re all lit they basically do warm up our primary living room!
Fake Fire Styling Thoughts
The previous (and most entertaining!) action is styling. I generally retained it quite nominal, so as to not block the Tv monitor, and I of program lean heavily on Tuesday Manufactured for my decor (shop benefits). A few stacks of publications, a few scented candles, and my favored Nicole lamp ended up my choice this time close to. I also have exciting swapping the Television set artwork each individual period – I uncovered this pretty landscape from Juniper Print Shop.
Get the Glance: Sources
Click specifically on every single merchandise below to be redirected.
picture mild // television frame // tv artwork // curtain rod // drapes // woven shades // crystal lamp // 6-wick candle // pillar candles // classic rug (comparable) // lidded candle // stoneware tray // travertine tile // border moulding // crown moulding // e book 1 // book 2 // e book 3 // guide 4
FAQ
How did you pick out which shade to paint the hearth?
It actually took me a though to make your mind up on black for the fire. I have often beloved the look in other inspiration pics, but wondered if it was way too daring for our house. I eventually made the decision that black would equilibrium the total space properly. We have black counter stools in our kitchen reverse the residing area, and a black steel railing to the remaining, heading up the stairs.
How extended did this project get?
This was quite a lot a stop-and-go task. It took a while to resource all the elements, discover time on the weekends to develop it with my dad, and then install and paint. While I initially hoped to have it finished for the 2022 vacations, we completed it in the early months of 2023. And then it took even more time to pick and purchase a body for the Tv. All in all, it took close to 5 months! We didn’t have a blueprint for this undertaking, so it took time to nail down all the particulars (no pun intended).
Why did you create a faux fireplace as an alternative of setting up a serious just one?
This arrived down to the actuality that we really do not program to reside in this residence endlessly (and thus never want to spend a ton of income into it), and we have an HOA that boundaries what we can alter about the exterior of the house. That usually means we couldn’t install a true chimney, and immediately after procuring all-around for electric fireplaces, I resolved that I didn’t treatment far too much about including precise warmth to our dwelling (it is new and incredibly energy successful). So having into consideration the spending plan for and ultimate purpose of this fireplace, I decided that style and charge performance have been my primary purpose.
Many thanks for studying about my fake fireplace task – I have been so delighted with the close result and have plenty of fun switching up the styling every so generally. Allow me know in the comments if you have any inquiries I’ll do my most effective to response them!