Add some whimsy to your home with this simple picket fence fireplace cover. It’s made from wood slats that you can make yourself or buy already cut into pickets. Add some hinges and paint and you can decorate it in a variety of ways for any season. You can buy one ready made but this one only cost us $16 to make. For a full fireplace makeover we also repainted our mantle to match.   Want more fireplace makeover ideas? Check out our post on How to Paint a Fireplace. It’s amazing!

Fireplace Cover Supplies

You can purchase pre-cut picket fence pieces but they are a bit thick so we split 1"x3"s and shaped them ourselves.

• Pre-shaped wood slats (or 1"x3"  split in the middle and shaped)
• 2 Sets Hinges
• Paint

Basic Instructions

This is our fireplace and hearth before the makeover.

Measure the width and height you want your fence. Make sure to allow for the hinged part that folds on each end.

You can buy the picket fence slats ready made and then cut them down to size or you can split your own which is what we did.

We created a pattern for the ends, cut one slat then used it as a pattern for the rest.

Cutting the pointed ends.

Sanding.

Piecing together to get ready for the back braces.

Cutting the back bracing pieces.

We decided to use wood glue on the braces before nailing them on.  Keep the glue very thin so it does not seep through the slat which ours did in places.  In retrospect we should have also placed our slats a little farther apart.

We had a stapler that worked to insert brads to hold the bracing pieces in place.

The hinges for the end pieces.

Coat of white paint.

All done!

We hung a wire decor item on the front. As you can tell we also painted our mantle!