Seven Ways to Hide an Old Fireplace
A fireplace can be a charming old-school design element in your home, reminiscent of cozy winter evenings and simpler times when we missed things like central heating. It is not uncommon for newer homes to have fireplaces built into common areas—often they are decorative models with an electric or gas engine that serve not only as a source of heat, but also as a source of light, and in older homes, a wood-burning fireplace is quite a beautiful fireplace. common find.
While these old fireplaces can be attractive, they are sometimes problematic in terms of design and layout. If you have a huge fireplace in your living room but your family tends to focus on the TV, for example, or if your old fireplace is out of order and looks ugly, it might seem like a bit of an eyesore and an annoyance to you when you try to come up with a furniture plan. which makes sense. Ripping out an old fireplace comes with a lot of hassle and expense , so you may want to simply tone down the focus on the fireplace or hide it altogether. Here are your best options for pretending the fireplace never happened.
Closing it
If you are going to permanently hide your fireplace behind something like a wall, you must close it first. This means sealing the chimney to prevent airflow (and keep critters from entering your home), which can be done in a variety of ways depending on whether you ever want to keep the option of opening it again. If the ugly fireplace you are hiding is a gas or electric insert, you should unplug it from fuel and power sources before covering it, or remove the insert entirely.
Once that’s done, you can get to work making sure no one ever notices this huge eyesore.
Wall it up
If your fireplace is really a problem, you might want to consider bricking it up. You can create a raised wall above your fireplace by first removing the mantel, if possible, and then attaching the cladding strips to the wall and the remains of the fireplace. If the fireplace is flush with the wall, you can simply glue the drywall in place. Then cover it with tape and mud like you would any wall.
While this will certainly hide the fireplace, it’s undesirable to have a weird bulge in your living room, so you can go halfway and fill the firebox. This will turn a useless fireplace into a wall decoration. You can buy decorative inserts (or make your own ) or brick the firebox and paint to match the rest of the wall.
Screens
Fireplace screens exist primarily to keep sparks and embers from entering your home (or to keep pets and children out of the firebox), and many of them also serve as an attractive way to hide or at least decorate a fireplace. But you can purchase many of them, which will also serve to seal the firebox and help hide the fireplace itself.
Furniture
One of the easiest ways to hide a fireplace? Arrange furniture in front of her. A daybed or sofa placed in front of the fireplace will certainly hide it, and there are absolutely no rules against doing so unless you are interested in using that old fireplace. A tall, free-standing shelving unit, the size of which completely encloses the fireplace, can also be a great help, giving you extra storage space. You can also consider building or buying a low cabinet and placing a TV on top , which can completely hide the fireplace and replace it as the focal point in the room.
Dye
A quick and cheap way to make a fireplace less visible is to thoroughly clean it , then prime and paint it . Simply painting it to match the rest of the wall will help make it invisible. Combined with the removal of the mantel if possible and a painted screen or insert, this project can almost completely erase an unsightly fireplace.
Shelving
A closed, unused fireplace can also become a bookcase or something else. Brackets for shelves can be installed in the firebox, as elsewhere, or make a special insert . With a coat of paint or tile, you can turn this fireplace into a built-in shelving unit that won’t look out of place in your room.
Vases and art
If you don’t have the time or budget for a project, consider using it as a frame for a sculpture, painting, or photograph. A large enough frame can cover the entire fireplace, or you can place large pieces in front of the fireplace with additional pieces on the mantelpiece to tie everything together into a cool art installation.
Similarly, you can arrange large flower pots with smaller plants on your mantel to turn your fireplace into a beautiful indoor container garden. None of these approaches will, of course, completely hide your fireplace, but they will definitely change the conversation from “wow, you have a terrible fireplace” to “wow, I want to do this in my house right now.”
Solutions for pets
If you have thoroughly cleaned your fireplace and just want to use it in your room, install a pet bed in the firebox and on the floor in front of it and leave your cat or dog there. Again, this won’t necessarily make your fireplace invisible, but it will make it a more cohesive and organic part of the room if your puppy sits there every time you have guests over.