hey guys I’m Nate welcome back to the
workshop having a fireplace in your
house can be really great but if you
don’t have one getting one installed can
cost thousands of dollars in our last
video we showed you how to build the
body of this fireplace and today we’re
going to be finishing it up so it looks
like it’s made of authentic brick and
wood to make the bricks we’re going to
be using these sheets of craft foam and
to make the mantelpiece look like it’s
made of real wood we’ll be using this
wood grained contact paper most of the
outside of the fireplace is going to be
covered in the bricks made from these
foam sheets so let’s get slicing each of
these foam sheets is 12 inches wide and
18 inches long so let’s cut it into
eighteen bricks that are six inches long
and two inches wide there you go you can
see we get quite a few bricks out of one
sheet which is good because we have a
lot of fireplace to cover
[Music]
there you have it we’ve now cut up eight
of those sheets of foam into bricks so
it’s time to start applying them to our
fireplace
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
update you can now see that we have
covered the whole front of our fireplace
in our foam bricks for the most part
it’s pretty basic we started just by
putting this arch over the curved part
of the opening of the fireplace and then
everything else kind of got built around
that we have a little bit of a staggered
pattern of the whole bricks and the
partial bricks on the sides for the
partial bricks I just lined up
approximately where the next brick
should be and cut it off with a pair of
scissors I did the same thing with these
small weirdly shaped pieces where they
intersect with the curves or angled bits
on the archway you can see I’ve got
these pieces here and here that I had to
sort of custom shape it’s pretty easy to
do you lay it down draw about where it
should be cut with a pen cut it out if
it fits great if it doesn’t cut more if
you cut it too much get a new one now at
the front of our fireplace bricked-up
I’m gonna move on to the sides and do
the same thing there one thing to note
is these small pieces of foam that are
acting as the ends of bricks I’m going
to try and line those up with
full-length bricks on the sides so that
it looks like the edge of a brick
actually set into a fireplace
[Music]
there we have it we’ve now bricked up
the front and the sides of our fireplace
and I have to say I think it’s looking
pretty good so the next step is to paint
it we did use the red and brown sort of
British colors for the foam but we are
going to cover almost all of that color
so you can really use whatever colors a
foam that you want now this foam has a
very open and porous surface on it which
means that it doesn’t always take paint
very well at first it will sort of drink
in the colour and you’ll lose a lot of
what you try to apply to it so before we
add any paint to it we’re going to take
a heat gun and go over this whole thing
the heat will actually make the cells on
the phone sort of close up and it will
give a smoother shiny texture which will
take our paint a lot better I also want
to point out that I ended up with a lot
of leftover bricks in fact I have over
two whole sheets worth of these bricks
and I used eight to make this which
means you could probably get away just
fine with only using six as you can
probably see it doesn’t take a lot of
time on any one piece of foam you can
keep moving fairly quickly
[Applause]
[Music]
the foam is now fairly sealed and should
take paint pretty well there may be some
people out there very familiar with this
craft foam who might suggest a few other
steps using evey a glue and some Plasti
Dip to get a really nice sealed coating
on this foam but for our purposes just
the heat gun should be enough
the last step we’re gonna take before we
add paint is I’m going to use the hot
glue gun to fill in a few of the gaps
where the edges of the bricks meet there
we go our bricks are attached they’re
sealed and we got gaps filled so now
let’s go over it with some paint and the
first kind of paint I’m going to use is
this stone textured spray paint it’s
really going to help give our bricks a
much more realistic texture this stone
textured spray paint is a little more
expensive than most spray paint it costs
about 10 bucks at Walmart
[Music]
[Music]
we’ve added a stone texture spray to the
bricks and I really like how it’s
looking but this stuff can take a few
hours to dry so now we need to let it
sit until it’s safe to handle well the
textured paint is drying let’s make our
mantelpiece look like it’s actually made
out of wood we’ve got this wood grain
contact paper which is kind of like a
roll of tape that’s 18 inches wide and
20 feet long I’m using this color of
wood grain because it was available at
Home Depot for about 15 bucks if you
look online there are probably a lot of
other colors or patterns if you prefer
that
what we want to do is measure a piece
that’s long enough to cover our whole
mantel cut that off then peel off the
backing on this sticker paper and then
attach it over the whole thing at once
I’ve got a little bit of a wrinkled edge
here so I’m first just gonna trim that
off so I have a nice straight edge there
we go I want it for you long enough to
reach all the way across the mantel down
the edge and then overlap just about an
inch or so on the bottom I’m gonna give
myself some extra I’ve got about four
inches here I’d probably only need two
and a half or so inches but I’m gonna
give myself margin of error same thing
on this side
well snip to measure that and then the
back of the contact paper has gridlines
all over it so it’s easy to follow
making sure you’re getting a nice
straight line if you’re looking for
where to buy this stuff it’s usually
called shelf liner it’s designed to put
on the inside of shelves to make them
look like they’re a little more fancy
and less just plain particle board or
something now we need to do is peel off
the backing to this strip of contact
paper without getting it all wrinkled up
remember this is basically a giant piece
of tape at this point so I just have to
make sure it doesn’t stick to itself and
get too wrinkled now we’re gonna want
this attached to our board to try and
make it go on nice and evenly
we can’t just flip it upside down and
press it on that does seem like it’d be
the easiest way but I’ve tried that and
it never goes on really nice and smooth
so we do have to do something a little
more careful than that so to start let’s
take our mantel piece and fit it I’m not
gonna put it right in the center I’m
gonna put it a little farther toward the
back because the back doesn’t really
need to be perfectly lined our fireplace
is going to be sitting up against a wall
if that doesn’t have quite enough
coverage or anything like that it won’t
be a big
so overlapping just by about an inch and
trying to keep it nice and straight so
that our contact paper will go over it
straight and to attach this down onto
the paper see that it’s sticking to it
like I said it’s basically tape so now
what we’re gonna try and do is lift it
up and start laying it down over the top
of our mantle one bit at a time you can
now see what it’s supposed to look like
[Music]
we now have our contact paper stretched
out all the way across our mantle as you
can see it like I said there would be
there are some bubbles and some slight
wrinkles but we can actually get most of
those out just by carefully pressing
them down if we’re able to push the
bubble to an edge then all of the air
can easily escape and we can usually get
rid of it entirely if you have any
bubbles that are in the middle of your
board and you just can’t get rid of them
completely the air is probably stuck and
can’t escape what we need to do is take
a sharp razor blade or a pin and poke a
very small hole in part of the bubble
this should allow all of the air to
escape and your bubble to disappear
there we go our contact paper is now
nicely secured to the top of our mantle
let’s turn off the excess and attach it
to the sides and see here’s one edge I
want it to reach down to the bottom of
the mantle and then maybe about an inch
on the bottom to wrap around so let’s
cut off our extra about here we’ll want
the contact paper to wrap around the
front of our mantle and the side but
this corner piece is just gonna get in
our way so let’s try and cut that out
we’re gonna cut lines into our contact
paper lined up with the front edge and
the side edge of the mantle
[Music]
now let’s pull our rap fairly tight over
the edge and rap it down over the bottom
of the mantle we can see that even
though I trimmed the sheet there’s a
little bit of overlap on to the front
that’s alright that will help prevent
there being any gap in between the front
and the side so we’re just going to put
a little slit right here so these will
fold down evenly and then they’ll get
covered by our front sheet
[Music]
now just to take out a few more wrinkles
and spots where it’s not quite even I’m
going to lightly go over the contact
paper with the low heat setting on the
heat gun
[Music]
[Applause]
with the wood print attached to our
mantle we’re now ready to move back to
the body of our fireplace and finish
with the paint job I’m going with this
sort of darker red the color on the can
is colonial red and I think it makes a
really good sort of faded brick look
I’ve got three colors of paint I’m gonna
be using the red that I already pointed
out is going to be my primary brick
color I have a little bit of this
caramel color that I’m going to be using
on the inside of the fireplace to give
it that sort of fire brick look and then
I’ve got black which I’m gonna lay down
everywhere that should be pretty covered
with soot on the inside of the fireplace
[Music]
there we go our fireplace is now looking
a lovely brick shade of red however real
bricks are very rarely one smooth
uniform color so to make it look a
little more realistic let’s take a few
different colors of acrylic paint some
crumpled up paper and sort of sponge
paint that on all over to give it a more
mottled look
[Music]
using just a little bit of acrylic paint
and a paintbrush
I added mortar into all of the gaps
between the bricks and that really makes
it pop I think now the bricks look like
bricks instead of just like a red
textured wall so I love doing that part
we’ve only got one step left before we
permanently attach our mantel on top and
finish our fireplace that’s to take our
black spray-paint and go over and just
add a little bit of built-up soot onto
our fireplace
[Music]
beautiful be beautiful love adding
weathering to stuff
mmm something looks so good like it
looks good before and then you add
weathering and you’re like BAM it’s
perfect now all we need to do is attach
our mantle and our fireplace will be
complete to attach this we’re gonna use
the hot glue gun again and to start I’m
just gonna put two little points of glue
on the very back that will hold it in
place so that when I put the bead down
on the front I know it’s not going to
shift forward backward or sideways at
all
[Music]
there you go mantle piece attached you
can see you can lift the whole fireplace
up by the mantel I mean it only weighs
like this whole thing is probably like
six pounds maybe I don’t know it’s very
lightweight for a whole fireplace of
course
yeah mantel attached looks like wood the
bricks look like brick fantastic this
thing makes such a cool decorative piece
but to finish it off there’s one more
thing it needs and that’s a fire in the
fireplace of course we don’t want a real
fire this thing’s made of foam it will
melt and burn and fall apart and smell
terrible we can’t have that so we have a
good substitute
yeah there we go a nice log fire to go
in our fireplace this is a neat little
artificial log fireplace setup that is
actually also a heater it puts out real
heat so you can have fireplace with a
fire and heat all coming from one spot
it’s pretty cool now to make this work
there is a cord that comes off of our
fire and we need to be able to get that
to an outlet so let’s cut just a small
hole in the bottom of the back of our
fireplace so the cord has a place to get
out
[Music]
beautiful that is so great now it’s like
a real functional fireplace you’ve got
the nice warm glow you’ve got the look
of the flames in the background you’ve
got the warmth coming off of it
everything you could need from a
fireplace there you have it now you’re
all prepared to relax by your own
homemade fireplace if it happens to be
near Christmas time your homemade
fireplace can be the perfect spot to
hang some stockings that was a real fire
you would really not want that stocking
to hang that low but that’s all right
this isn’t gonna catch your stockings on
fire there you have it how to build your
very own brick fireplace
it’s way lower cost and takes a lot less
time than putting in a real one there
are of course some limitations like no
real fire in your fireplace and there’s
a limit to how much weight you can put
on top of it but it really does a good
job of looking like a fireplace I love
having one of these things thanks for
joining us for this video and remember
to come gear yourself up with products
and merch at the king of random calm see
you there you can cut right through
bricks with a razor blade it’s amazing
it hit you in your face it wouldn’t even
hurt
[Music]
you
workshop having a fireplace in your
house can be really great but if you
don’t have one getting one installed can
cost thousands of dollars in our last
video we showed you how to build the
body of this fireplace and today we’re
going to be finishing it up so it looks
like it’s made of authentic brick and
wood to make the bricks we’re going to
be using these sheets of craft foam and
to make the mantelpiece look like it’s
made of real wood we’ll be using this
wood grained contact paper most of the
outside of the fireplace is going to be
covered in the bricks made from these
foam sheets so let’s get slicing each of
these foam sheets is 12 inches wide and
18 inches long so let’s cut it into
eighteen bricks that are six inches long
and two inches wide there you go you can
see we get quite a few bricks out of one
sheet which is good because we have a
lot of fireplace to cover
[Music]
there you have it we’ve now cut up eight
of those sheets of foam into bricks so
it’s time to start applying them to our
fireplace
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
update you can now see that we have
covered the whole front of our fireplace
in our foam bricks for the most part
it’s pretty basic we started just by
putting this arch over the curved part
of the opening of the fireplace and then
everything else kind of got built around
that we have a little bit of a staggered
pattern of the whole bricks and the
partial bricks on the sides for the
partial bricks I just lined up
approximately where the next brick
should be and cut it off with a pair of
scissors I did the same thing with these
small weirdly shaped pieces where they
intersect with the curves or angled bits
on the archway you can see I’ve got
these pieces here and here that I had to
sort of custom shape it’s pretty easy to
do you lay it down draw about where it
should be cut with a pen cut it out if
it fits great if it doesn’t cut more if
you cut it too much get a new one now at
the front of our fireplace bricked-up
I’m gonna move on to the sides and do
the same thing there one thing to note
is these small pieces of foam that are
acting as the ends of bricks I’m going
to try and line those up with
full-length bricks on the sides so that
it looks like the edge of a brick
actually set into a fireplace
[Music]
there we have it we’ve now bricked up
the front and the sides of our fireplace
and I have to say I think it’s looking
pretty good so the next step is to paint
it we did use the red and brown sort of
British colors for the foam but we are
going to cover almost all of that color
so you can really use whatever colors a
foam that you want now this foam has a
very open and porous surface on it which
means that it doesn’t always take paint
very well at first it will sort of drink
in the colour and you’ll lose a lot of
what you try to apply to it so before we
add any paint to it we’re going to take
a heat gun and go over this whole thing
the heat will actually make the cells on
the phone sort of close up and it will
give a smoother shiny texture which will
take our paint a lot better I also want
to point out that I ended up with a lot
of leftover bricks in fact I have over
two whole sheets worth of these bricks
and I used eight to make this which
means you could probably get away just
fine with only using six as you can
probably see it doesn’t take a lot of
time on any one piece of foam you can
keep moving fairly quickly
[Applause]
[Music]
the foam is now fairly sealed and should
take paint pretty well there may be some
people out there very familiar with this
craft foam who might suggest a few other
steps using evey a glue and some Plasti
Dip to get a really nice sealed coating
on this foam but for our purposes just
the heat gun should be enough
the last step we’re gonna take before we
add paint is I’m going to use the hot
glue gun to fill in a few of the gaps
where the edges of the bricks meet there
we go our bricks are attached they’re
sealed and we got gaps filled so now
let’s go over it with some paint and the
first kind of paint I’m going to use is
this stone textured spray paint it’s
really going to help give our bricks a
much more realistic texture this stone
textured spray paint is a little more
expensive than most spray paint it costs
about 10 bucks at Walmart
[Music]
[Music]
we’ve added a stone texture spray to the
bricks and I really like how it’s
looking but this stuff can take a few
hours to dry so now we need to let it
sit until it’s safe to handle well the
textured paint is drying let’s make our
mantelpiece look like it’s actually made
out of wood we’ve got this wood grain
contact paper which is kind of like a
roll of tape that’s 18 inches wide and
20 feet long I’m using this color of
wood grain because it was available at
Home Depot for about 15 bucks if you
look online there are probably a lot of
other colors or patterns if you prefer
that
what we want to do is measure a piece
that’s long enough to cover our whole
mantel cut that off then peel off the
backing on this sticker paper and then
attach it over the whole thing at once
I’ve got a little bit of a wrinkled edge
here so I’m first just gonna trim that
off so I have a nice straight edge there
we go I want it for you long enough to
reach all the way across the mantel down
the edge and then overlap just about an
inch or so on the bottom I’m gonna give
myself some extra I’ve got about four
inches here I’d probably only need two
and a half or so inches but I’m gonna
give myself margin of error same thing
on this side
well snip to measure that and then the
back of the contact paper has gridlines
all over it so it’s easy to follow
making sure you’re getting a nice
straight line if you’re looking for
where to buy this stuff it’s usually
called shelf liner it’s designed to put
on the inside of shelves to make them
look like they’re a little more fancy
and less just plain particle board or
something now we need to do is peel off
the backing to this strip of contact
paper without getting it all wrinkled up
remember this is basically a giant piece
of tape at this point so I just have to
make sure it doesn’t stick to itself and
get too wrinkled now we’re gonna want
this attached to our board to try and
make it go on nice and evenly
we can’t just flip it upside down and
press it on that does seem like it’d be
the easiest way but I’ve tried that and
it never goes on really nice and smooth
so we do have to do something a little
more careful than that so to start let’s
take our mantel piece and fit it I’m not
gonna put it right in the center I’m
gonna put it a little farther toward the
back because the back doesn’t really
need to be perfectly lined our fireplace
is going to be sitting up against a wall
if that doesn’t have quite enough
coverage or anything like that it won’t
be a big
so overlapping just by about an inch and
trying to keep it nice and straight so
that our contact paper will go over it
straight and to attach this down onto
the paper see that it’s sticking to it
like I said it’s basically tape so now
what we’re gonna try and do is lift it
up and start laying it down over the top
of our mantle one bit at a time you can
now see what it’s supposed to look like
[Music]
we now have our contact paper stretched
out all the way across our mantle as you
can see it like I said there would be
there are some bubbles and some slight
wrinkles but we can actually get most of
those out just by carefully pressing
them down if we’re able to push the
bubble to an edge then all of the air
can easily escape and we can usually get
rid of it entirely if you have any
bubbles that are in the middle of your
board and you just can’t get rid of them
completely the air is probably stuck and
can’t escape what we need to do is take
a sharp razor blade or a pin and poke a
very small hole in part of the bubble
this should allow all of the air to
escape and your bubble to disappear
there we go our contact paper is now
nicely secured to the top of our mantle
let’s turn off the excess and attach it
to the sides and see here’s one edge I
want it to reach down to the bottom of
the mantle and then maybe about an inch
on the bottom to wrap around so let’s
cut off our extra about here we’ll want
the contact paper to wrap around the
front of our mantle and the side but
this corner piece is just gonna get in
our way so let’s try and cut that out
we’re gonna cut lines into our contact
paper lined up with the front edge and
the side edge of the mantle
[Music]
now let’s pull our rap fairly tight over
the edge and rap it down over the bottom
of the mantle we can see that even
though I trimmed the sheet there’s a
little bit of overlap on to the front
that’s alright that will help prevent
there being any gap in between the front
and the side so we’re just going to put
a little slit right here so these will
fold down evenly and then they’ll get
covered by our front sheet
[Music]
now just to take out a few more wrinkles
and spots where it’s not quite even I’m
going to lightly go over the contact
paper with the low heat setting on the
heat gun
[Music]
[Applause]
with the wood print attached to our
mantle we’re now ready to move back to
the body of our fireplace and finish
with the paint job I’m going with this
sort of darker red the color on the can
is colonial red and I think it makes a
really good sort of faded brick look
I’ve got three colors of paint I’m gonna
be using the red that I already pointed
out is going to be my primary brick
color I have a little bit of this
caramel color that I’m going to be using
on the inside of the fireplace to give
it that sort of fire brick look and then
I’ve got black which I’m gonna lay down
everywhere that should be pretty covered
with soot on the inside of the fireplace
[Music]
there we go our fireplace is now looking
a lovely brick shade of red however real
bricks are very rarely one smooth
uniform color so to make it look a
little more realistic let’s take a few
different colors of acrylic paint some
crumpled up paper and sort of sponge
paint that on all over to give it a more
mottled look
[Music]
using just a little bit of acrylic paint
and a paintbrush
I added mortar into all of the gaps
between the bricks and that really makes
it pop I think now the bricks look like
bricks instead of just like a red
textured wall so I love doing that part
we’ve only got one step left before we
permanently attach our mantel on top and
finish our fireplace that’s to take our
black spray-paint and go over and just
add a little bit of built-up soot onto
our fireplace
[Music]
beautiful be beautiful love adding
weathering to stuff
mmm something looks so good like it
looks good before and then you add
weathering and you’re like BAM it’s
perfect now all we need to do is attach
our mantle and our fireplace will be
complete to attach this we’re gonna use
the hot glue gun again and to start I’m
just gonna put two little points of glue
on the very back that will hold it in
place so that when I put the bead down
on the front I know it’s not going to
shift forward backward or sideways at
all
[Music]
there you go mantle piece attached you
can see you can lift the whole fireplace
up by the mantel I mean it only weighs
like this whole thing is probably like
six pounds maybe I don’t know it’s very
lightweight for a whole fireplace of
course
yeah mantel attached looks like wood the
bricks look like brick fantastic this
thing makes such a cool decorative piece
but to finish it off there’s one more
thing it needs and that’s a fire in the
fireplace of course we don’t want a real
fire this thing’s made of foam it will
melt and burn and fall apart and smell
terrible we can’t have that so we have a
good substitute
yeah there we go a nice log fire to go
in our fireplace this is a neat little
artificial log fireplace setup that is
actually also a heater it puts out real
heat so you can have fireplace with a
fire and heat all coming from one spot
it’s pretty cool now to make this work
there is a cord that comes off of our
fire and we need to be able to get that
to an outlet so let’s cut just a small
hole in the bottom of the back of our
fireplace so the cord has a place to get
out
[Music]
beautiful that is so great now it’s like
a real functional fireplace you’ve got
the nice warm glow you’ve got the look
of the flames in the background you’ve
got the warmth coming off of it
everything you could need from a
fireplace there you have it now you’re
all prepared to relax by your own
homemade fireplace if it happens to be
near Christmas time your homemade
fireplace can be the perfect spot to
hang some stockings that was a real fire
you would really not want that stocking
to hang that low but that’s all right
this isn’t gonna catch your stockings on
fire there you have it how to build your
very own brick fireplace
it’s way lower cost and takes a lot less
time than putting in a real one there
are of course some limitations like no
real fire in your fireplace and there’s
a limit to how much weight you can put
on top of it but it really does a good
job of looking like a fireplace I love
having one of these things thanks for
joining us for this video and remember
to come gear yourself up with products
and merch at the king of random calm see
you there you can cut right through
bricks with a razor blade it’s amazing
it hit you in your face it wouldn’t even
hurt
[Music]
you
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