Upgrade your Fireplace Instantly with this DIY Faux Marble Fireplace Hack

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DIY Faux Marble Fireplace Update

Upgrade your Fireplace Instantly with this DIY Faux Marble Fireplace Hack

Welcome to the August Pinterest Challenge Blog Hop, hosted by My Pinterventures. This month I chose to recreate a DIY Faux Marble Fireplace Hack by updating our slate fireplace with faux marble contact paper. Keep reading to find out how to update your fireplace & make sure you check out some of the other projects linked at the bottom of this post. I challenge you to DO one of the pins you’ve pinned lately! Make Pinterest count. #pinterestchallenge

Marble Everywhere

A few months ago I started searching “marble contact paper” on Pinterest for ideas of how to use it. It is all the rage right now in the DIY decorating world. DIY Decorators are putting it on everything from cabinet faces to lining pantry shelves to nightstand drawer accents. It has popped up all over the crafting scene and I wanted on this bandwagon NOW!

Backstory

We have a gas fireplace that we never use, might I add. It has a black slate hearth and border with white colonial looking trim. We don’t use the fireplace (we don’t even have natural gas hooked up), but we do use the living room. While we have a bonus room above the garage that houses the tv and toys where we like to hang out, I’m intentional about the living room. I have made an effort to arrange the furniture in a way that is inviting so that we use the room. There are a few toys stashed in the coffee table for the kids. And I enjoy having a cup of coffee in the room every morning or blogging quietly after the kids have gone to bed.

I want the room to feel calm, warm and enjoyable. While I love color, the base of the room is neutral and the curtains and chairs are the old really colorful pieces. The room also gets amazing natural light from windows on two walls. To play up on this warm, inviting feeling I decided the fireplace was a good place to start.

The Challenge

As part of the Pinterest Challenge, we make ourselves really dive into our pins and choose a doable project and get to it. It’s easy to pin all day, but never take the time to get around to the DIY projects.

This fireplace update was my way to act and do what I was pinning. I ordered this Marble Contact Paper and plastic scrapers from Amazon to install the faux marble contact paper. The contact paper is very shiny and thick. In reality, I was expecting it to be a thin shelf liner, but it is much thicker like Silhouette vinyl. The contact paper is also very durable. It was not easily stretched or torn.

As for the scrapers, I use them for everything! I have a set of three that I use for cleaning pans, scraping kid food off floor and baseboards. It also came in handy for this DIY Table Makeover project where I used the scraper to prep our kitchen table for painting.

BEFORE

Here is the before photo of the fireplace. You can see the black slate heart and surround as well as the trim and molding. The goal was to cover the surround with marble looking contact paper and leave the inset and vent exposed black metal.

How To

Luckily, this was a pretty simple pinterest hack. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

  1. Measure the slate fireplace surround. Measure the width across the top and the length of each of the slate pieces.
  2. Cut contact paper to size leaving a 1/4″ to 1/2″ extra buffer.
  3. Apply top contact paper first. Start in one corner and work your way across the top piece. Use the scraper to push the paper against the trim. (There is a small gap between our trim and slate, so I pushed the contact paper into the gap and tucked it under the trim).
  4. Smooth out any bubbles with your hand and press firmly to adhere the faux marble contact paper.
  5. With a razor blade or Xacto knife, trim the excess contact paper. Start by trimming the top right over the existing lines of the slate. Trim out the corners.
  6. Lastly, stick the blade into the very top of the vertical piece and carefully drag the blade down the entire length of the fireplace, resting the side of the blade on the existing slate as a guide. This creates a precise line, but does not leave any paper over or underlapping. (This seems wordy- better description: As if you are cutting wrapping paper, stick in the scissors and just slide them to the top instead of chomping with them. In this case, work from top to bottom).
  7. After cutting to size and applying all three pieces of contact paper, give the whole thing another good press to seal and tuck in any last corners and cut any excess off the bottom.

IN PROGRESS CLOSE UP

DIY Faux Marble Fireplace Hack from StampinFool.com

AFTER

Get the look with this DIY Faux Marble Fireplace Hack from StampinFool.com

What do you think of this DIY version of a Faux Marble Fireplace? It turned out great and was a quick, simple hack. Adding the light faux marble brightens the room up and will look even better after I paint the surrounding wall bright white.

The faux marble fireplace contact paper has been installed for a little over a month now and has held up to rough little ones playing in the room. The littlest toddler likes to rub her little fingers over the seams, but she has yet to pull it off so it’s a win in my book.

Below I will link the supplies again and the other Blogs to check out for inspiration for your next project.

Supplies


Now let’s see what other things Pinterest inspired! Head over and visit the other hosts to see what they crafted, cooked, built, or tried!

Pinterest Challenge Blog Hop

Erlene – My Pinterventures • Alexandra – Eye Love Knots
Joanne – Our Unschooling Journey • Laurie – My Husband Has Too Many Hobbies
Jenny – Cookies Coffee and Crafts • Kristie – Teadoodles
Beverly – Across the Boulevard • Katrin – Kreativ K
Debra – Shoppe No. 5
Gail – Purple Hues and Me
Emily – Domestic Deadline • April – Stampin Fool
Chelsea – Making Manzanita • 
Julie – Sum of their Stories • T’onna – Sew Crafty Crochet
Michelle – Our Crafty Mom • Lisa – Blogghetti
Marie – The Inspiration Vault • Kelley – Simply Inspired Meals
Debbee – Debbee’s Buzz • Shirley – Intelligent Domestications
Habiba – Craftify My Love • Marci – Stone Cottage Adventures
Kenyatta – My Design Rules • Kelli – The Olympic Nest
Roseann – This Autoimmune Life • Terri – Our Good Life
Leslie – Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After

Lydia – Lydia’s Flexitarian Kitchen


An InLinkz Link-up




20 thoughts on “Upgrade your Fireplace Instantly with this DIY Faux Marble Fireplace Hack”

  1. Your fireplace turned out great! It really brightens up with less black and looks great. I might want to try this on the tile around our fireplace.

  2. April, I must say I really liked how your faux marble turned out. I would have thought that it is easy to peel away but if baby wasn’t successfull so far, this stuff seems to be of good quality!!! I’d love to know how it will look after it had to endure the heat of a gas fireplace, though.

  3. Thank you! It was super easy to apply and the contact paper is soon nice. It’s very much like sturdy printed vinyl. It was thick, super glossy and doesn’t make crease marks if your bend it up or get rough with it, which is a must with little kids who destroy everything before you even craft with it!

  4. Thanks for stopping in. Contact paper has come such a long way. This is really thick and smooth and luxurious feeling. Those terms to describe contact paper are funny, haha!

  5. This looks amazing. When you said contact paper I thought of the kind used years ago. It would never go on right. It would bubble and stick to everything except what it was supposed to. This is so impressive.

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