Faux Fireplace Log Stack

I have been dying to make this for a few months now.  I love my fireplace, but we've had a standard grate over the front of it and it just wasn't cutting it anymore.  First off, our fireplace is a corner fireplace so a standard grate didn't really fit.  Second, with two boys it was always getting knocked over.  And third, it just didn't look cute (I know, I know....).

I thought about just putting some pretty logs in it to make it look nicer, but then it's still not safe.  We have the metal log holder (I don't know the actual name of it), and there are always footballs or soccer balls or cars landing in there (again, a house with boys...).

I decided I wanted to cover it.  I finally found this cute post and decided I was going to make my own.

Luckily, my dad was cutting down one of his aspen trees.  I asked him if I could take the wood, he said yes!  Yay-free wood!

I measured out the front of my fireplace and the side of it.  Since it's a corner fireplace, I decided to do faux logs in front and actual logs on the side.

[all my wood ready to go]

I measured my wood 16" and started cutting enough logs to fit up the side of the fireplace.  Once those were cut, I had him cut pieces that were about 2" long for the front facade.

[measuring my logs for the side]

getting ready to cut it all

[my awesome husband cutting all the wood]

[logs for the side]

[small pieces for the front]

 All done cutting!  Look at all that wood!!

I let it sit out for a week or so to help it dry out.

Okay, now it was time to put it up.  I used a 1/2" thick MDF board that my husband measured and cut to fit both the front and the sides.  Then I sprayed them both black.

I didn't really care how good these looked as they're being covered with wood, but just enough black to look dark.

Next I placed all my short pieces on how I wanted them & glued them with wood glue.

Getting so close to being done.....

Next I stacked my logs how I wanted them.  Now this got a little tricky...

I then taped the ends of the MDF board where I could see the center of the log (where the log was closest to the board)...

Then we used the drill press to drill holes into the board.

Once the holes were all drilled, we flipped the logs over so the fronts were facing down.  We put the MDF board on top, black facing the logs and started screwing the logs into place.

three of them done...so cool

We put both pieces into place and screwed them together with black screws and voila-it's done!

[Here you can see the front from the side before we put the two pieces together...]

It is a lot of wood and a lot of logs, but I'm so happy the way it turned out!  Grateful my dad let me take the wood and grateful my husband was so willing to help me!

Happy Crafting!

Total Cost: $15?
Total Time: a lot:)