UncategorizedDIY Faux Marble Fire screen December 5, 2014 Yay! I’m finally sharing one of my absolute favorite projects ever: our DIY Faux Marble Fire Screen. Obviously, I wouldn’t use this in front of a real-working fireplace. You would need iron or something more durable. But for a faux fireplace like ours? This was perfect. This one was such a happy accident. The week before my Home Depot Holiday project was due, I was racking my brain for some way to camouflage our closed up opening. I knew some sort of a fire screen was the right choice, but I just couldn’t decide what I wanted that would pop against the black. I decided on the marble and gold scheme when thinking about my black fireplace and how the gold sconces popped against it. I pictured a screen that looked like four marble panels set in a gold metal frame, but I was not willing to pay for marble slabs. We were looking for a CHEAP solution that took very little time. I immediately thought about my office desk, but that faux marble paint treatment took forever. I do like the outcome, but after figuring out this new faux marble technique, will probably never attempt painting it again! I immediately thought about marble contact paper. My friend Bethany over at Dwellings by Devore created some amazing projects with it! Check out her little girl’s play kitchen redo here (totally doing that for Miss Rosie one day) and her awesome faux marble and gold office shelves here. Such amazing transformations and doesn’t it look like real marble??? Well, my issue was that I got this idea two days before my deadline. Yes, you read that right. Why does that always happen to me??? I knew that I couldn’t order the paper from anywhere and get it in in time. So, I searched everywhere I could think of and no one had marble contact paper. I did find it one place, but it looked nothing like real marble and Bethany’s beautiful paper. So, as I was about to give up on my dream of this faux marble fire screen with gold trim, inspiration struck. I was very skeptical that it would work, but it was worth a try. I blew up a picture of marble as a Staples Engineer Print. Yes, that is a photo of marble blown up at Staples for $3.99 a sheet. It’s 3′ x 4′. You can find great photos of marble with all different patterns on any stock photo site. I cropped mine into the exact size panels (width of 12″) that I wanted, though I don’t think you’d have to do that. We bought one sheet of MDF at Home Depot. We cut it into our three panels: one large one for the center, and two for the sides. We decided on the dimensions strictly based on how tall and wide our fireplace opening was (yes, it’s closed up, but you can still see the original size of it). Ours ended up the following dimensions: Center Panel – 31″H x 24″W Side Panels – 31″H x 12″W Once we had our pieces cut, we cut out our marble strips (I printed one marble panel per Staples Engineer print, so I needed four copies total). Once we had our panels cut, we laid them on the cut pieces of MDF and trimmed to fit. You want your pieces of paper to fit slightly within the edges of the MDF. The gold trim will cover up any overlap, but if the paper is bigger, you won’t be able to camouflage that. We purposefully left about 1/4″ of MDF exposed around all paper. Once they’re cut to size, we sprayed adhesive onto the MDF panels. Then, quickly smooth your paper onto the MDF. Yes, Chris’ hands are blurry here because he is moving so fast! You don’t have a lot of time before it dries and you want to make sure you get it straight and totally smoothed out. FYI, if you’re pregnant, have someone else do this part. I stood about thirty feet away and could still smell the adhesive. It’s strong stuff. We weren’t thinking about it being like spray paint and Chris should’ve really worn a little mask. Granted, he wasn’t exposed for very long at all, but always better to be safe. Here you can see our center panel with both marble panels attached. The Staples Engineer print was longer than we needed, which was great because it gives you a little room to move it all around so that the marble print on the panels doesn’t look identical on all four panels. We even turned the photo upside down on two of the panels and shifted them to different heights so that it would look more natural. You can see the little gaps we left around the paper too. Once, all of your marble paper is attached, it’s time to add the trim. We took 1×4″ pieces of MDF and cut them to the right size to frame out the sheets. Before putting the marble paper on, we spray painted the trim strips and the edges of the MDF (that will show in the end) with our favorite gold spray paint: Design Masters from Michael’s. We used Gorilla Glue to attach the strips to the panels. We definitely wanted to glue it so there were no little nail holes. This is what we had on hand and it ended up working great, but we definitely used too much and had to really wipe it away as it was setting on the edges. Use less than you think you’ll need. It’s strong stuff. Put your trim pieces in place. I love that gold finish! It looks so realistic for spray paint, I think. We used clamps to hold the trim pieces down as they dried. I will say, we had a couple of scares that thankfully, we waited out. It didn’t seen like the glue was going to hold, so if you see this, don’t worry! After drying all night, they were perfectly attached! Also, later that night, there were tons of ripples in the marble paper where the adhesive was drying. Thankfully, by the next morning, those were totally gone and now it has a very smooth, marble-like finish. But we were worried there for a minute. After all panels were completely dry, we screwed small hinges into the back to attach it and make it stand. Chris was highly skeptical when I told him that I wanted to glue paper photos of marble onto a fire screen, but in the end, he was a believer. We’re both really loving how it turned out. I will absolutely be using this marble paper for many projects in the future!!! For variety, maybe I’ll use a tighter grained marble with more gray for the next one. Hmm…what will I put it on? Who knows, but I can’t wait! *** And if you haven’t already, make sure you check out Jen Rizzo’s Holiday Housewalk this week! Mine went up on Monday, but you can see the start of the tour ( so you don’t miss a single house) here. Don’t forget about the free eBook giveaway when you sign up for Young Living Oils! More information here! 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Haley says December 5, 2014 at 4:01 pm Engineer prints of marble… What an amazing idea!! I love this piece. Reply
Corinna - For My Love Of says December 5, 2014 at 7:47 pm Ohmygoodness. You are fantastic! I love how realistic it looks. Reply
Sarah says December 6, 2014 at 7:42 am This DIY look so rich – I would have never imagined it was paper! Now I want one for my fireplace. Fantastic as always Lindsay! Reply
Deonna at the Child at Heart blog says December 6, 2014 at 4:13 pm I’ve been loving your posts the past few months and LOVE your style but today you are officially a genius!!!!! 🙂 Reply
[…] And then for some of us, a marble fireplace is just a dream. But you can have the same effect by DIYing this faux marble fire screen with… yup, you guessed it, marbled contact paper. No one will ever guess it’s not real. (via The White Buffalo Styling Co.) […] Reply
[…] And then for some of us, a marble fireplace is just a dream. But you can have the same effect by DIYing this faux marble fire screen with… yup, you guessed it, marbled contact paper. No one will ever guess it’s not real. (via The White Buffalo Styling Co.) […] Reply
[…] And then for some of us, a marble fireplace is just a dream. But you can have the same effect by DIYing this faux marble fire screen with… yup, you guessed it, marbled contact paper. No one will ever guess it’s not real. (via The White Buffalo Styling Co.) […] Reply
[…] And then for some of us, a marble fireplace is just a dream. But you can have the same effect by DIYing this faux marble fire screen with… yup, you guessed it, marbled contact paper. No one will ever guess it’s not real. (via The White Buffalo Styling Co.) […] Reply
[…] And then for some of us, a marble fireplace is just a dream. But you can have the same effect by DIYing this faux marble fire screen with… yup, you guessed it, marbled contact paper. No one will ever guess it’s not real. (via The White Buffalo Styling Co.) […] Reply
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