Cozy DIY Fireplace

Ever since we moved into our first home I have been mentally sizing up this wall for a fireplace. We are almost at our first anniversary of living here and I don’t think there has been a single day I walked past this wall without thinking about how nice a fireplace would look there. When we celebrated our very first Christmas here, I took large pieces of paper and put them on the wall so that I could draw a fireplace and “hang” our stockings on it! Here is proof! *Covers face in embarrassment*

After daydreaming about this fireplace for almost a year, I finally got the motivation, along with 5 days off work, to finally get started on this project!

(I had no idea what I was about to get myself, and my husband into!)

So on day 1, I told Evan that I was going to finally build this fireplace. I think all he said was “okay”. Then he came home from work and saw this, which was the point I got to when I realized I needed his help:

I think this is when he realized how serious I was about this project. I also don’t think he knew exactly how big I was planning on making this. I wanted it to look as much like a real fireplace as possible!







For anyone that thinks a small car can hold you back from doing huge projects like this, here is proof that you can do it if you put your mind to it! I fit all the wood for the first part of this project in my Chevy Cobalt Coupe in one trip! Look at how small that trunk is! (I actually think the funniest part about this is that not even a month later I got an SUV..*SMH*)

Graph paper is your friend with projects like this. I took measurements of the wall and how large I wanted the fireplace to be so that I could get a good approximate on the amount of wood I needed. I used one square as a quarter foot. This part definitely does not need to look pretty, as long as you can understand it.

My next step was getting the beams attached to the wall. It’s not obvious, but it is not completely center with the middle of the vaulted ceiling. The studs in the wall kept me from making this “too” perfect. The little blue pieces of tape on the wall are studs, they seemed to be so random! I wanted x-ray vision so badly at this point. I knew this was going to be bearing a lot of weight, so I wanted to make sure that every piece was in a stud.







I don’t have an up close picture of it, but in order for the pieces of wood to be flush with the wall, I cut grooves in the wood where the baseboard is. I didn’t want to go so extreme as to take the baseboard. I wanted to be able to take everything down and start over as though nothing happened, just in case this project didn’t turn out looking so great. Now that I know how well it turned out, I would have totally cut that baseboard out!

So on this next photo, you will notice that there is a little bit of “sketchy diyness” going on up top. Apparently the studs change after that last beam and I needed a way to keep the two outside pieces sturdy on the wall, so that was my solution. I’m not a home builder, so I don’t understand why there was the sudden change in stud placing, but it wasn’t very nice! Now that I am looking at this, I have no idea how I had gotten this far without any help. I guess that’s just how motivated I was!

So the next photo is the one I shared earlier, which is the point I got to when I finally needed help.

I got Evans help to pull that up and hold it so that we could screw them together. Then we built the base. Now, I have a general idea about framing, it is definitely not professional, but it works! If you try this, I would recommend watching some videos on framing structures. I wish I would have done that before starting, but I had so much thunder that I wanted to work through this like lightning.

Sorry about the blur on this next photo. It is the only up close one I have of the frame that I made to put around where the fireplace insert goes. I used concrete board to frame around where I was planning on putting the stone and tile.

This was my first time working with concrete board, it wasn’t too hard. The one thing I learned is that the smaller the pieces get, the harder it is to get a clean cut when you snap them in half. I learned this the hard way. I just got two sheets of concrete board and it was just enough. I could have made it easier on myself and just got the third board, but instead, the inside pieces are made out of all my scrap pieces. But what can I say, it works! Plus this isn’t that part that needs to look pretty.

So next, my hunky husband helped me cut the paneling for the upper portion of the fireplace and nailed in the high parts that I couldn’t reach. We originally picked paneling because it was going to be cheaper than anything else we could find. It actually turned out to work really well for what we needed it for. The way they fit in together really helped keep them in an even line, made it easy to nail in, and made it so there weren’t any gaps between the wood pieces.

Yay! It is starting to look like a legit fireplace! I didn’t bother putting the last piece of paneling at the top because I knew I was going to put 5″ moulding on the top, so instead of trying to cut that piece to fit the slope of the ceiling I just left it empty. Our puppy is already relaxing in front of the fire :3

For the tile, I highly recommend renting a tile saw to make the cuts. I thought I was going to be able to get away with the scoring and chiseling method, but that just made a mess. I did the front corner that you can see in the first picture, before deciding that I wasn’t going to be able to do that for the whole thing. We rented an MK Mini Tile Saw from Home Depot for $26 a day. Completly worth it! The tips I have for this part are to work bottom to top when you do the tiles and take the time to find the tile you want to use before you start the project so that you can make your framing measurements fit the pre-made tile pieces and you won’t have to make as many cuts. If I would have made the base, not even an inch shorter, I wouldn’t have needed to cut small pieces to finish it off.

I was originally planning on doing some sort of tile, or brick on the inside of the fireplace but we ended up using a chalkboard panel that we found at Home Depot. It serves its purpose pretty well, and if I ever want to change it is the future its easy to pop in and out.

The beam was probably my favorite thing to make for this whole project! I used this youtube video by BlazingNailgun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwe6Cu8brbI to make a faux beam mantel without any side pieces showing. I’m really happy with how it turned out, and his video has really easy directions on how to make it.

Next I nailed the moulding on all the corners and then prepped it for staining.

I think my least favorite part about making this fireplace was staining the wood. I don’t think I realized how big it was until I had to stain this monster. I left the moulding on the top off so that I could stain that separate, then I wouldn’t get any stain on the ceiling. I ended up getting a whole bunch on the wall, but I still need to paint there anyway!

Last, but not least! Evan nailed the moulding to the top, which finally made it feel complete!

It was the cherry on top! I can not wait to decorate for Christmas!