DIY Faux Brick Fireplace

Ever since posting my Christmas home tour, I’ve had messages upon messages about our faux fireplace. It was simple, quick and cheap! So I’m sharing the tutorial with you today!

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know I have a deep love for Facebook Marketplace. We rarely buy new furniture, and almost everything I buy is second hand so that I can give it my own creative twist without the price tag.

Well, I’d been eyeing this architectural piece on facebook for a while. I finally gave in and bought it for $30. It was vintage, chippy, and perfect for the top of a fireplace mantel, hence why I came up with the idea for a faux fireplace. It seems that these are all the fad right now, so why not jump on board.

You can create this and add the brick, or come up with your own creative spin and use book pages, a cute heater, or anything else to spice up your faux fireplace. We recently finished a faux brick accent wall in here, that I’ll be blogging about soon, so I wanted to keep the theme going.

Faux Fireplace Materials

Fireplace Mantel (or top of one)

Common Board (to build your fireplace)

Paint

Joint Compound

Regular Ole Tape

Nail Gun

*I already had everything on hand left over from other projects, so total this faux fireplace cost me $30!

Step One

To start with, we made sure my mantel piece was level on the wall and nailed it into place using our pneumatic nail gun.

Step Two

Because the previous owner was crazy, and used three different types of trim in this room, we went ahead and swapped out the trim for a piece that matches the original trim in our farmhouse. This is not necessary to build your faux fireplace, we’re just trying to clean up the messes he made.

Then we cut two pieces of common board to the length needed. Measure between your mantel and the top of your trim. Cut. And nail to the wall. We also had some decorative trim on hand and decided to add this to cover up our seams, as well as to give our faux fireplace more character.

Step Three

On to my favorite part. Faux brick. I start by using just super inexpensive masking tape (.94″ wide) and using my level to create level lines across the insert of my faux fireplace. Next up, I started with the top row, and create my bricks by ripping my tape to the approximate length. Remember that brick isn’t perfect, so your taping doesn’t need to be either. Just make sure everything is level!

Here we are all taped up, and ready for the messy part!

Step Four

I always have joint compound on hand because I’ve used it many times to create faux brick. A large container of it is $10 at your local Walmart. Smear it all over the inside of your fireplace, on top of your tape. You don’t need to rush, but you do need to get this all done at the same time so you can remove your tape before the joint compound dries.

Step Five

Once you’ve added all your joint compound, you need to remove the tape while the compound is still wet. Otherwise your tape will adhere to the wall, and you won’t get that 3D effect or the grout lines.

This is messy and I do recommend having a trash bag nearby, as well as wearing gloves. I managed to only get one drop of compound on the floor and since it was still wet, it easily wiped up. If you’re doing this over carpet, you’ll want to put down a drop cloth of some sort.

Let this dry overnight before attempting to paint!

Step Six

Once your joint compound is dry, you can start the fun part, painting.

First up is painting your faux fireplace surround. I went with white to match the already painted and chippy mantel piece. Then you can get creative and start painting your brick. I just used a mixture of brown, creams, and grey acrylic paints to paint the bricks, used a white paint I had on hand for the grout lines, and then stippled my paintbrush in the white paint and whitewashed the entire brick insert. This part is totally up to you, and there is no “right” way to do it. After all, it is just paint. Don’t like it? Paint over it with new colors!

Step Seven

I still wasn’t totally satisfied with my faux fireplace. It’s on a very wide and tall wall and in my opinion, it just needed something extra. So I ran two pieces of tape all the way up either side of the fireplace, and followed this technique once again to create a faux chimney.

Faux Fireplace Reveal

This faux fireplace was the perfect addition just in time for the holidays! I hung some large windows on either side and added some real pine wreaths. I also placed some garland on top of the mantel to add some pops of color! For a $30 project, I’m really happy with the final product!

One day, we hope to add a real fireplace in here, but for now I love the effect that our faux fireplace gave this wall. I used to have large open shelving here and it just made this room seem small and cluttered. Along with the fresh paint job, this whole room has a new look and feel and seems so much more open and bright!

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