Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Crafting of a Fireplace



My husband and I purchased this cute electric fireplace. It's nothing special, but it works great as a heater in the family room. When it's turned on it has a light and a rotating thingamagig in the back that looks kind of like fire moving. But we decided we wanted to make it a little more us.

We started with an old bookcase. My husband cut on some plywood to create a false front, and nailed them together. I used laminate flooring tiles and cut them to different, random sizes and shapes and covered the front. Using a dark gray caulking, I did a faux grouting, leaving a texture to give it the rustic shape we like.



Then in went the fireplace, if you look really close on the left you can just barely make out the hole where the plug to the electric fireplace goes out the back to be plugged in.

Next, my husband built a base for the bottom, out of wood scraps we had lying around. 



A 1.5" board across the top and some corner pieces for the sides went on next.

A bit more corner pieces around the inside...



Some of the remaining tile covers the base piece, giving the impression of a granite slab. Finish of the edges with the cornering pieces again.

Final touch, since the "mantle" color didn't match the other wood, we took more of the leftover tiles and did a little checkerboard like pattern across the top to tie it all together. Now we have a great fireplace in the family room that looks more like a full size fireplace than the little one we started with. 

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