Building a Faux Marble Fireplace

Overview: A marble fireplace can be an expensive addition or add on in home construction. The typical marble fireplace can cost well over $10k to build, depending on the design of the mantel and surround. If the marble is imported the price can even be higher. Having said that, marble fireplaces offer unusual exquisite beauty and uniqueness that cannot be duplicated by brick or stone fireplaces. 

You can capture the beauty and uniqueness of a marble fireplace without going through the expense by building a faux marble fireplace. Here is how I did it.

A couple of decades ago I lived in France as a Boeing Company field service engineer working with the French Air Force. It was a great experience with many fond memories. One of the things I do while visiting a new town or country is read the classified ads in the local newspaper. A wealth of information can be obtained from reading classified ads such as a general feeling of the local economy in addition to reviewing what people may be selling.

During one of these readings I stumbled across an item for sale that interested me. It was an antique “chimney” (fireplace in French). I wasn’t quite sure just what this was so I call for an appointment to look at the “chimney”.

To my amazement the “chimney” was a two hundred year old marble fireplace mantel and surround stacked in pieces in the basement of an old French house. It was in good condition and all the pieces to assemble it seemed to be there. I purchased it for under $200, having no idea what I was going to do with it.

When I left France I had it crated and placed in storage. Some fifteen years later I built a new house and contemplated using it in some way. I didn’t want a conventional wood burning fireplace where I could have used the marble mantel and surround as the finish. Eventually I came up with a plan the works well, actually quite fantastically.

I assembled the two hundred year old marble mantel and surround in the den of my new home and installed a 8,000 BTU hot water heater inside the opening. The water heater is hooked up to the hot water boiler with its own wall mounted thermostat and a two stage fan. I had a fireplace screen manufactured that fits inside the opening. It looks just like a classic marble fireplace and it heats the room very quickly.

Marble fireplaces are often removed from old homes and discarded. They were designed to burn coal, not wood. Cold burning fireplaces went out of vogue many decades ago. Finding one and reconstructing it in your home is a great project for the DIY homeowner. Assembling is quite easy using marble cement which can be purchased from most home improvement supply center. 

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Fireplace and Woodstove Safety

How to Restore Marble Fireplaces

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