Stacked Wood Fireplace Cover

Warm weather is at long last here so we can finally close up our fireplaces.  Covering the opening to your fireplace not only hides an unsightly opening, but also keeps your precious air-conditioning from escaping up the chimney.  I love the look of a fireplace stacked with split wood, so I created a fireplace cover that has just that look....

Cut a piece of 1/2" or 3/4" plywood to the size of your fireplace.  Make sure it fits in there nice and snug (believe me, you don't want to find out it's slightly too big after the fact....not that that is something I would do...okay, that's exactly what I did and had to start over.)  Paint one side of it black or dark brown.

Take your split wood and cut it randomly into chunks that are anywhere from 2" to 5" long.

Put a generous dollop of adhesive on the plywood and set down a chunk of wood.

Work along the bottom first being consistent aligning the flat side of the wood with the bottom edge of the plywood.  This will be the edge that sits on the ground, so you do want it to be flat.

Continue to add pieces in a jigsaw puzzle fashion using a dollop of adhesive for each chunk.  Turn the pieces this way and that and make sure that you use a nice variety of heights to make it look random.  Make sure you don't go past your outer edge on the four sides. Use smaller pieces to fill in once you have all the big chunks in place.

Once you've got them all in place, let the adhesive dry for the recommended time.  Once dry, take your power screwdriver and 2" screws and screw in from the unfinished back into as many logs as you can hit.  This isn't really necessary, but it does make the piece extra secure.

Pick the cover up and slide into place.....Now isn't that pretty!