How to Build a Faux Fireplace

I currently work as a culinary instructor and café manager at Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan.  Our student run café is called the Main Street Café where we sell all of our student made items.  Last year we started a special volunteer day where students could come in on their Thanksgiving break on a scheduled day to help produce a bunch of edible holiday items.  We play Christmas music all day and make some really awesome stuff that they wouldn’t have the opportunity to do otherwise.  (I will do a post on this with a bunch of the awesome recipes we make!)  The customers LOVED everything last year and we sold out completely!  So this year my Main Street team and I were very excited to “up our game.” In part of “upping our game,” our team was very insistent on having a unique way of displaying our goodies.  One night while I was scrolling through Pinterest I saw a faux fireplace made out of cardboard boxes and shipping paper.  I loved the idea and knew I wanted one for our display, but I knew that I wanted a more realistic, elegant one to go with our products, and that I didn’t want to spend a lot of money since I wasn’t sure how it would turn out.  I decided to go peruse through my Dad’s old “stuff” in my parent’s garage.  (My Dad was a lover of crafts and projects too!  It’s what we loved to do together!  My Dad always would save random things that could come in handy for various projects.) My Dad had a big pile of foam poster board and old scrap molding that my Mom was actually going to throw away since she was moving.  My eyes lit up, I was inspired! I grabbed a few boards and molding, and was on my way! This is what I did:

Here is the foam board I used.  I looked at pictures of real fireplaces on the internet and then cut out my pieces with a box cutter.

I was planning on hot gluing the pieces together but I couldn’t find my glue gun anywhere so I opted to use some duct tape that I grabbed from my Dad’s workshop.

Next I took foam ½” foam board (that I bought at Michaels craft store) and marked it into 7 5/8” x 3 ½” rectangles.  I then cut it with a box cutter (use sawing up and down motions it will not cut straight across.)  

By now I called my hubby who was at his parent’s house and asked him to borrow my Father-in-Laws hot glue gun.  So he came home just in time for me to attach the “bricks.”  I made sure to adhere the bricks so that each row the brick was centered below the previous rows “grout lines.”

Now was the fun part!  I covered the inside of the fireplace with trash bags and I was ready to “make it stone!”  It’s an awesome spray paint that you can use to make anything “look like stone.”  I have used it before in my backyard on a bench and loved it.  I bought this at Michaels as well with a 50% OFF coupon. (Of course!  )I ended up using 3 cans in total.

I let this dry overnight and the next day I painted in my “grout lines.”  For this I used White paint with a little bit of tan mixed in.  I then used a small craft paint brush to paint in-between the bricks.

Now I cut foam board for the mantel and hot glued it on top.

Now I got a little “fancy” you don’t have to do this, I actually thought it looked great as is.  But since I had scrap molding to use, I used a miter saw to cut molding to frame the mantle and the bottom edge of the fireplace.  I then adhered it to the fireplace with hot glue.  

Now I painted the foam board and molding so that they would match, I just used my leftover white paint.  

Now I attached a back piece with the leftover foam board and tape.  I made sure to leave a space in the corner open so that I could run Christmas lights into my “fire.”

I added in my “fire” at home just because I was excited and couldn’t wait to text a pic to April! HaHa

I love it so much I might put it in my house after the Christmas display is over after work since I don’t have a fireplace.  It’s perfect to have for the Holidays, or really anytime! Not bad for a fireplace you can pick up and move around with your fingertips! :)