Making an electric fireplace with your own hands. Do-it-yourself fireplace in an apartment: imitation of a fireplace, installation instructions with step-by-step steps Self-made frames for electric fireplaces

An electric fireplace warms up a room in a matter of minutes, does not smoke and does not require a wood or coal shed. Therefore, such heaters are displacing traditional fireplaces not only from apartments, but also from country houses. Let's see how you can assemble such a fireplace with your own hands.

How a real wood-burning fireplace works

If you are familiar with the design of a real wood-burning fireplace, then building an electric fireplace with your own hands turns into an exciting activity, because understanding the essence of the technology or design makes any work process easier. A regular fireplace consists of three zones:

• Ash pit - ash from firewood or slag from coal accumulates there.
• Fireboxes - wood burns here. It is located directly above the ash pan and is separated from it by a horizontal grate.
• Chimney - a hood that removes combustion products to the street. It starts with a dome-shaped area located above the firebox. Next, a chimney pipe is connected to the dome, the head of which protrudes above the roof.

And an electric fireplace is even simpler, because it does not need a chimney or an ash pan. They can be designated schematically using decorative overlays.

As a result, the entire construction of an electric fireplace comes down to assembling a stylized firebox and a dome-shaped part of the hood. That is, we need to equip a portal, install a heat generator there and come up with a way to simulate a living flame or smoldering coals.

Step one: create a decorative portal

First you must find the correct position for the future hearth. Usually it is placed in the middle of a blank wall (without windows) or in one of the corners of the room. Moreover, the central location will make the portal the center of the interior composition, so if you are not confident in your skill, then it is better to place the fireplace in the corner. Then the portal can be built using simplified technology, designing only the front side. Moreover, this will not affect the functionality of electric fireplaces.

First, measure 70 cm from the corner, along each wall, and make a mark at the level of the baseboard. At the marked points, secure the meter bars using self-tapping screws or dowels. Align the free ends of the bars according to the level (vertically) and secure them in the same way. This will give you vertical posts.

Take two 70-centimeter bars and fix them on the wall strictly horizontally, placing one end close to the vertical posts, and the other in the corner. This will give you supports for the horizontal shelf. Place two horizontal strips on the bars attached to the walls - at the top and bottom. The length of the slats is 100-99 cm. This way you will get supports for the front side.

Buy a half sheet of plasterboard with dimensions of 1.25x1.25 m. Separate panels with dimensions of 100x100 cm from this sheet. Secure this panel to horizontal strips with self-tapping screws. From the leftovers, cut strips with oblique edges, which will be used to cover the upper part - the false shelf.

Measure 50 cm from any edge of the front panel and draw a center line. Set aside 30 cm from the center line on the left and right, marking the vertical boundaries of the hole for the firebox.

Draw horizontal lines on the front panel located at a distance of 20 cm from the floor and the top border of the drywall sheet. This way you will get a horizontal firebox. Carefully cut out a hole for the firebox along the vertical and horizontal boundaries. Its dimensions will be 60x60 cm.

Plaster the front panel and the shelf plane with finishing plaster and apply horizontal and vertical lines imitating brickwork to the semi-hardened layer. Do the same with the inside of the “firebox”, plastering the walls and painting brickwork on them.

Now all you have to do is paint the front “bricks” in terracotta color, and the inner masonry in a black-brick color that imitates traces of soot. After this, the portal can be considered ready.

Step two: install the heat generator and design the firebox

Our fireplace doesn't have a chimney, but that's not a problem. We will use a conventional electric convector as a heat generator. Of course, you can assemble the heater yourself, using a tungsten spiral stretched over a ceramic plane, but then the fire safety of the house may suffer. But this will not happen with a converter, although its acquisition will require additional costs.

Therefore, we buy a convector with a body height of no more than 20 cm. We insert it into the hole in the front panel, placing it on the floor. Afterwards, the cord is routed along the baseboard towards the nearest outlet.

Instead of a convector, you can use infrared film heaters - they are mounted on the walls before assembling the portal for the hearth. This option provides enough heat in a local area (1–1.5 m from the firebox), allowing you to feel the comfort of being near a real fireplace without significant costs for electricity.

Next, to disguise the convector, we decorate the fireplace grate, laying it directly on top of the heat generator. To do this, you need to take a foam block 10x40x60 cm and cut it in half, getting two blanks 10x20x60 cm. These blanks are painted terracotta and placed to the left and right of the convector.

At the end of this stage, purchased fire grates are placed on the foam block base. An alternative would be 10mm reinforcement rods, painted black and laid in 2cm increments, parallel to the front panel. Moreover, for an accurate and authentic imitation of grate bars, the rods can be laid in grooves cut on the foam block.

Step three: designing imitation coals

The electric fireplace is almost ready. Now we have the most difficult work ahead of us - making an imitation of smoldering coals. Follow the step-by-step instructions exactly and you will succeed.

To do this, we will need small bags made of thick plastic, polyurethane foam, an old Christmas tree garland and paints (scarlet, dark red and black). We take the bags and blow polyurethane foam into them, and during the process of its hardening, they need to be crushed a little, forming uneven and unequally sized pieces of coal.

We wait until the foam has completely hardened and cut off the bags, freeing the frozen mass. After this, the internal part of each “coal” is removed. That is, instead of a solid “stone,” we get a hollow piece with a translucent crust.

Next, you take an old diode garland from a Christmas tree with a working red line. In this case, unnecessary blue, green and yellow diodes can be torn off from the control unit. After this, two or three diodes are inserted into each “coal”, which are attached to its inner surface with tape.

The next step is to collect all the corners into a pile, arranging it in a picturesque disorder. You can use the remaining foam from the balloon as fasteners. And in the finale you need to paint the coals with scarlet and dark red paint. Apply thick black stripes to the corners and edges.

After this, the entire structure is placed on the “grid-irons” of the homemade hearth, and the plug of the garland is plugged into the socket. Moreover, in this case there is no need to interrupt the flicker generator - if you select the correct attenuation mode, it will simulate the light effect of smoldering coals.

Recently, the trend to build fireplaces in apartments or houses has become popular. While a real fireplace is still possible in a private house, it is not acceptable for an apartment. Therefore, decorative electric fireplaces are installed here, which only superficially resemble real ones.

Today you can make an electric fireplace yourself from plasterboard. At the same time, its portal can be designed in various ways, since a variety of finishing materials fit equally well on plasterboard.
The presence of such an interior element in the apartment will give the overall atmosphere of coziness, comfort and warmth. The main thing here is to make such a portal for an electric fireplace with your own hands so that it fits perfectly into the interior of the room. This article will help you with this.

The portal of an electric fireplace is its external design, which, depending on the design of the room, can be completely different. For example, here you can use different styles for decoration: modern, high-tech, country, etc.
An electric fireplace is inserted into the portal, which works like a regular heater. This device operates from a power outlet, which makes it necessary to plan the connection method before assembling the portal in order to provide for all the nuances. Therefore, from a fire safety point of view, it is absolutely safe. As a result, standard sheets of plasterboard can be used to finish such a structure.
The assembly of the portal for an electric fireplace is carried out according to a standard scheme, as for conventional fireplaces. But there are some nuances here, which will be given below.

Design selection

According to their design features, portals for electric fireplaces are of the following types:

• parietal. It is located along the wall and mounted in one plane. It will be an ideal solution for spacious rooms, where it can be placed in the center, thus making it a highlight;

Wall-mounted electric fireplace
Corner electric fireplace

• angular. This design is more suitable for small rooms, since finding a place in the corner is much easier than in any other place in the room.

In addition, the portal itself can have different shapes:

• rectangular;
• square;
• triangular.

The first two forms are typical for wall portals, and the third - for corner ones.
Which option should you choose, proceed from the size of the room, since making any type of structure will be approximately the same in complexity.

Selecting the type of finish

Today there are quite a lot of finishing materials that can be used to decorate decorative fireplaces. But among them, drywall occupies a special place. It will be much easier to cover a portal for an electric fireplace with your own hands using sheets of plasterboard.
This material is best suited as it has the following advantages:

Electric fireplace made of plasterboard

• simple installation that even a beginner in construction can do with his own hands;
• environmental friendliness and safety;
• affordable price;
• the ability to design the portal in any style, since the material can easily take any shape (if the correct bending technology is used).

In addition, the electric fireplace does not heat up, so plasterboard sheathing can be made with ordinary sheets, without fire-resistant properties.
At the same time, decorative finishing can be done using any materials: glass, metal parts, artificial stone, etc.

Preparation is the Key to Success

In order for the fireplace portal to fit perfectly into the interior of the room, careful preparation is needed. It includes the following points:

• determining a place in the room for an electric fireplace;
• creating a drawing;
• applying markings to the wall and floor.

Note! The final result of the installation work depends on how well the preparation is done.

Also, the key to success is a complete set of required tools. This set is similar and the same for all situations in which it is necessary to work with drywall. The only difference is that this list includes tools that are needed only in certain situations.
To assemble a plasterboard portal for an electric fireplace, you will need a standard set of tools.

Planning stage

It is worth noting that a self-made portal for an electric fireplace is stationary and cannot be adjusted or altered in the future. Therefore, it is very important to make the correct calculations and dimensions so as not to suffer from design flaws later.

Drawing

To avoid design errors, you should create a drawing. Using it you can correctly make markings for the fireplace and assemble the frame of the portal and base.

Making a portal

The installation of the portal frame begins from its base:

• the base, depending on the type of shape, can be rectangular, square or triangular;
• We begin the installation by installing the starting profile, and then, inserting the profile guides into it, we remove the entire base;
• here it is necessary to strengthen the base with jumpers. This especially needs to be done for corner structures.

Portal base

After this, we bring the racks up. They will serve as the walls of the niche in which the electric fireplace will be placed.

Note! If there is a fairly heavy load on the fireplace, then we install jumpers between the posts from the guide profiles.

After the frame has been raised to the top, we begin assembling the tabletop. Its frame must be reinforced, just like the base of the fireplace.

Tabletop frame

The tabletop for an electric fireplace is a mandatory part of the design. To design it, you can use the following materials:

• thick plywood. But during final finishing it will need to be finished with ceramic tiles;
• tree. Finally it is varnished;
• MDF. This material has a top plastic layer, so no further finishing is required;
• drywall. When forming a tabletop from plasterboard, it also needs to be finished with ceramic tiles at the final stage of work.

After the frame for the tabletop is ready, we begin to remove the pipe. This element is found very often in fake fireplaces, as it gives them a similarity to real structures.
The pipe frame for the portal is a wall box. Its installation proceeds as follows:

Pipe frame

• When assembling the portal body, it is necessary to leave space for a ventilation hole. Its approximate dimensions are 40x10 cm;
• this hole should be located in the middle of the niche to accommodate the electric fireplace;
• then, along the marking lines, we attach the profile guides to the wall;
• They can be attached to dowel-nails or self-tapping screws with large threads. The former are suitable for brick or concrete walls, and the latter for wood;
• after installing the profiles, check the level;
• then we attach the cut profile to the ceiling and the holes in the portal;
• then we reinforce the structure with transverse jumpers from rack profiles.

Note! The frequency of installation of jumpers depends on the weight of the finishing material. Since drywall is not a very heavy material, the fastening steps can be done not very often.

Now all the main elements of the portal frame necessary for the electric fireplace have been assembled and can be sheathed with sheets of plasterboard. Sheathing with sheets of plasterboard is carried out according to the usual scheme.

Beginners in working with drywall should know the following points:

• choose the finishing material based on how easy it will be for you to work with it;
• follow the assembly instructions and do not deviate from them;
• observe the dimensions of the structure to scale when transferring it from the drawing to the walls and floor;
• It is imperative to make a commensurate choice of the size of the hearth, the portal itself and the fireplace in relation to the entire room. Otherwise, the design will bring disharmony to the room;
• Before planning the portal settings, purchase an electric fireplace so that it fits exactly into the assembled structure. Therefore, the fireplace hearth should be made as wide as possible;

Hearth

• the external decoration of the portal must correspond to the interior of the room in which the electric fireplace will be located;
• There is no need to hide the frame of the hearth behind the portal.

By adhering to these recommendations and tips, even a beginner will be able to correctly assemble a portal for an electric fireplace on their own, without the involvement of specialists.
Follow the instructions for assembling an electric fireplace yourself, and your room will receive an excellent and beautiful family hearth.

Portals for electric fireplaces are often purchased as a set together with an electric fireplace or separately after choosing a suitable model, but not many people decide to design and assemble it with their own hands, as they believe that this process is very complicated and costly.

Portals for electric fireplaces can be assembled at home with your own hands from various materials, which determine the final total cost of such a frame; the first thing that needs to be decided before starting work is the style in which it will be made.

Styles and solutions for portals

The portal for an electric fireplace can be:

• Classic - suitable for designing and decorating most rooms and rooms in houses and apartments, it has simple features, straight shapes that are combined with more elegant thematic decor;
• Country - for such a fireplace, environmentally friendly and natural materials are used, such as natural minerals, marble, granite, sandstone and other stone;
• High-tech - such a fireplace portal is based on materials such as transparent glass, steel, chrome surfaces, plastic and other modern materials;
• Modern fireplaces, just like classic ones, can easily be combined with any room and can partially overlap with the classical direction. Art Nouveau is characterized by the use of original forms, bright and contrasting colors.

Before you make your own or buy a portal for an electric fireplace, you need to choose a suitable model that will ideally combine and intersect with the electric fireplace, decor and interior of the room chosen for installation!

An electric fireplace portal must be chosen or made correctly, however, many often make a number of mistakes and do not take into account some nuances:

• Determine the correct and suitable style that will be used to make the fireplace portal and decorate the room, also pay attention to the height and dimensions of the structure. If a low design suits you, you can give preference to an English fireplace, while among more bulky designs, imitations of fireplaces in the style of Russian stoves are very popular;
• An electric fireplace will be lost if you deepen it too much or hide it in a frame; also, when choosing a hearth and portal, you need to take into account their size, as well as their combination with the area of ​​the room. If you prefer the classics, then the firebox will occupy two-thirds of the portal’s height and half the width;
• Before you make a portal, you need to buy a suitable hearth, otherwise in the end it simply won’t fit the size of the frame or won’t match it in style.

Do-it-yourself portal for an electric fireplace

If you want to buy an electric fireplace and are going to make a portal for it with your own hands, we recommend that you listen to these tips:

• To assemble the structure, choose only durable fireproof materials, as well as cladding that will match the style of the firebox and the interior of the room;
• The hole into which the firebox will be inserted must be of the ideal shape and size so that the fireplace fits into it without damaging the surface;
• If you plan to assemble a fireplace portal made of wood with your own hands, it will fit well into a country or classic interior, and it is recommended to use synthetic glue to join and join the elements;
• It is possible to assemble a portal that is suitable and fully complies with all the stated requirements only with the help of a preliminary drawn up project with all measurements and preferably an image of the structure from various angles and in section.

The most popular frame for electric fireplaces is a portal made of plasterboard, which you can easily assemble with your own hands; instead of this material you can use polyurethane, plywood, chipboard, MDF and other durable and reliable materials.

To work we will need to acquire:

• Galvanized metal profile and design design;
• Self-tapping screws with fine threads;
• Drywall, paint;
• Plaster.

The electric fireplace, which will be installed by hand, will be manufactured using the following technology:

• First of all, a base is created from a metal profile, fastened with self-tapping screws, after which a frame is assembled in which the electric fireplace will be installed, we strengthen such a frame with metal profiles, and create a podium;
• An electric fireplace, a video about which you can watch on the Internet, is then covered with sheets of plasterboard; it is also necessary to take into account that there is an electrical outlet close to the location of the fireplace. The upper part of the fireplace is assembled from a metal profile, which imitates a chimney, after which it is also sheathed with plasterboard;
• The surface of the fireplace portal is first primed and then puttied, it is important that the plaster solution is sufficiently dense and thick, and it is better to give preference to a gypsum-based composition, since such a surface will be smoother and more even;
• At this stage of the work, the corner electric fireplace made of plasterboard must be painted; for these purposes, it is better to use facade paint and, after drying, additionally treat the portal with varnish;
• Now we begin to decorate the space near the fireplace and the shelf, if one is provided; paintings, mirrors, figurines, and candles can be used for this.

You can also assemble a portal for an electric hearth or false fireplace from materials such as:

• Metal profiles and drywall;
• Self-tapping screws, tiles (stone);
• Drawings, special glue (can be replaced with liquid nails);
• Board for creating a shelf above the firebox.

Just as in the first case, first of all, a skeleton is created from a metal profile, which is sheathed with plasterboard, after which the portal is faced with stone or tiles and a wooden tabletop is installed and secured on top.

Fireplace portal made of parquet, stone and wood

Often, after renovations in a house or apartment, various building and finishing materials remain, which can always be used and thereby save money and diversify the decor. For example, you can make a portal for an electric fireplace with your own hands from the remains of a laminate or parquet board; for these purposes we will need:

1. Collect the remains of the parquet and prepare them for work;
2. Buy two tones of stain, one calmer and the second quite bright and contrasting;
3. Prepare several wooden blocks, about three pieces;
4. Get screws and a special adhesive suitable for these purposes.

1. With the help of wooden blocks we create a base or a so-called frame, for this we fasten them to the wall in the shape of the future frame, for fastening we use prepared self-tapping screws;
2. Now we start cutting and preparing the parquet board, to do this we cut it into elements of various lengths and cover it with stain of certain shades (it will be more interesting to use contrasting and fairly bright colors);
3. The parquet board is first laid out on the floor, all necessary adjustments are made, after which the portal is transferred to the wall and secured with glue. To prevent the boards from falling off, it is necessary to create a supporting mechanism, which may consist of one or more sticks, which are removed immediately after the glue has dried;
4. After the portal is completely dry, you can begin to decorate it; various figurines, vases with flowers, and photo frames are placed on the shelf. Of course, you can complement such a portal with an electric fireplace, but it will look more interesting if you simply decorate its firebox, for example with candles, ceramic or decorative firewood, LED garland or lamps.

It is best to complement such a portal with an electric classic hearth, with a depth of up to 6-8 centimeters, while the width of each parquet board will be about 100-150 millimeters; if the hearth is more massive and deep, more parquet will be needed to build such a frame.

Although a fireplace portal made of stone will look very advantageous in any interior, the cost of its construction is quite high, since natural and environmentally friendly materials are used for cladding. Also, the stone has a lot of weight, as a result of which the portal is assembled from brick, and for structures with a high mass, reinforcement of the floor is required and the construction of a foundation is possible, which is not very convenient.

Wooden fireplace portals are also difficult to make with your own hands; the manufacture of such a structure requires a properly selected design, professional tools and an experienced craftsman; for gluing wood, only synthetic-based glue with water is used.

Making portals for electric fireplaces is a rather ambiguous process; if your main goal is to acquire an inexpensive frame for an electric fireplace by any means, then you can easily make it yourself from plasterboard, plywood or MDF. However, if your first priority is high quality and impeccable appearance, and not cost, you can order a fireplace portal from a specialist from materials such as wood or stone with a higher cost.

If you make a portal for a fireplace insert yourself, you need to prepare a complete and high-quality drawing; you should not save your time and energy at this stage, since this is the key point. Afterwards, it is important to select suitable materials, which together are capable of creating a high-quality, durable and stable frame that can hold the electric fireplace with its usually considerable mass. All parameters of the firebox, its height, width and depth must correspond to the electric fireplace, which is why, first of all, it is chosen and the frame is assembled for it.

Portals for fireplaces made by yourself, with all of the above, have one significant advantage over purchased ones, the fact is that the frame made by you or a master will be unique, one of a kind, will fit into your interior and will emphasize the electric hearth.

This video tells you how to assemble a wall portal for an electric fireplace with your own hands from inexpensive scrap materials:

To make additional heating in the apartment functional and at the same time unusual, it is recommended to use electric fireplaces. These devices are quite easily installed in the wall and connected to the home network. Next, readers of the information portal “” will be provided with simple instructions on how to correctly install an electric fireplace in an apartment with your own hands!

What should you consider before installation work?

Before you purchase a heater and begin installing it, you need to resolve several important issues:

1. What is the main purpose of the device?
2. Where will the hearth be located?
3. What design will it have?
4. How will the electric fireplace be connected to the network?

We will briefly tell you about each nuance of self-installation.

So, the first thing you must decide is what this will be used for in the house and apartment. Most often, an electric fireplace is installed for decorative purposes - to make the living room more comfortable or to give the bedroom a romantic atmosphere. However, this does not mean that such a device will not perform its main function - heating the room. The power of an electric fireplace usually varies between 1-2 kW, which is quite enough to heat a room of 20 square meters. meters. If any room lacks a central heating system, such equipment can save the situation and make the room warm.

The next, no less important question is where to install the electric fireplace in the room. Here it’s up to you to decide where it’s best to place it, but consider the following requirements:

• Direct exposure to sunlight and bright light from light bulbs will degrade the quality of artificial fire, so it is better to place the device in a darkened corner or a plasterboard niche.
• If you choose a hanging design option (more on this later), the hearth should hang no lower than 1 meter from the floor. Otherwise, it will be covered by other interior elements.
• In addition to the previous requirement, it should be noted that the installation location and connection of the electric fireplace must be such that it is the “highlight” of the room’s interior. Various cabinets, paintings and figurines should complement the electric heater, but not dominate it in design.
• If the room is spacious, you need to install the electric fireplace in the center, but not in a secluded corner.
• There should be a socket near the selected connection point so as not to draw a new line from the junction box.
• We highly recommend not placing a fireplace under the TV, because... Heat generation may adversely affect the operation of the screen.
• If you want to decorate your interior according to Feng Shui, place the fireplace in one of the corners. It is believed that negative energy accumulates in the corners of the room, which is neutralized by the positive energy of a corner electric fireplace.
• If the room is small, but you still want to install this type of electric heater in it, buy a corner housing. In this case, you will “kill two birds with one stone”: you will save free space and make your dream come true.

The third question is choosing a suitable design depending on the location of the installation of the electric fireplace in the apartment with your own hands. It should be noted here that electric fireplaces can be corner, wall-mounted, built-in and attached (all 4 options are shown in the photo below). As for the last two options, the attached fireplace does not need to be mounted into the wall, but just needs to be moved to a suitable place, which significantly facilitates installation work. With the installation of a built-in electric fireplace, things are more complicated, because... For installation it is necessary to make a special plasterboard structure or a niche in the wall. The advantage of a portal heater is that it can be lined with natural stone or wood, creating a design similar to a real wood-burning fireplace.

Well, the last nuance is the method of connecting the electric fireplace to the electrical network in the apartment. Everything here is quite simple - due to its low power, the fireplace can be connected to a regular outlet, the main thing is that no more powerful electrical appliances are connected to this electrical point. It is not entirely reasonable to draw a new line from the distribution box, unless, of course, the place for the electric heater is chosen at the stage of a major overhaul. If you are really thinking about installing an electric fireplace during renovations in your apartment, install one separate outlet in a suitable location and you won’t have any hassle.

The wires are visible - the socket is installed incorrectly

Having dealt with all the nuances, you can proceed to connecting the electric fireplace to the network with your own hands, which we will talk about next.

Main process

Let's look at how to properly connect an electric fireplace to the network using step-by-step photo instructions as an example. We will provide you with a more complex technology when you need to install a portal housing (built into the wall).

In a real fireplace, a portal is necessary to protect adjacent walls from the high temperature of the fire and burning wood or coals. Modern houses and apartments are heated with electric fireplaces, since they do not require special care and consumption of real fuel materials. A do-it-yourself portal for an electric fireplace is made for decoration. This design should repeat the relief of natural materials - stone, marble or brick.

Portal design

The portal looks like a frame that forms the main part of the fireplace. It should be a stable structure that will harmoniously fit the electric fireplace into the interior of the room and serve as a shelf for photographs and vases of flowers. An interesting solution - framing the hearth as a continuation of the furniture(racks, cabinets or plasterboard niches). The portal must support the weight of the built-in fireplace.

Based on the design, frames are divided into stationary and mobile. Fixed portals can be made of any material, but movable ones must be strong and stable. The dimensions of this structure are small; the mobile structure must be deep and wide, and have a center of gravity in the lower part. Thanks to this, the portal will not fall if handled carelessly. For a wide shelf, you need to screw a special corner to the wall above the fireplace.

Style and materials

Conventional fireplaces are built from natural stones. But this is a heavy material, it is not easy to process it and give it a suitable shape. Therefore, to create an electric fireplace with your own hands, choose wood, plasterboard or plywood. The portal is tinted, varnished or painted, and covered with decorative film.

The hearth, which will only play the role of decorating the room, can be placed in a foam plastic or plasterboard frame. If an electric fireplace will heat the room, the selected material must be resistant to high temperatures. It is better to cover the portal with plaster, tiles or heat-resistant mineral film.

Before designing, you need to purchase the electric fireplace itself. The size and design style of the portal depend on it . The most popular styles of electric fireplaces are:

• Victorian;
• country;
• classical;
• Romanesque;
• urban.

In Victorian-era rooms, a massive hearth framed with expensive wood, dark polished stone slabs, gilded moldings and carvings will look harmonious. For country-style rooms, portals made of light wood, decorated with small stones or decorative brickwork, are suitable.

The classic version involves the presence of small columns, discreet stucco molding on a plastered surface, and marble finishing. Bulky stone structures with wide shelves made of dark wood are suitable for lovers of the Romanesque style. A modern urban portal is made of glass or painted metal, its shape is very simple, there are practically no decorations.

The shape of the electric fireplace frame depends on the room. Usually a rectangular structure is made and placed against a plain wall. A base must be installed for the portal - a stone or brick pedestal. Its width should exceed the frame by at least 30 cm; the owners regulate the height themselves.

Using drywall

Portals made of plasterboard are reliable. The basis is metal frames, they are sheathed with plasterboard sheets. You will need a little material, but choose only the green, moisture-resistant option. The portal is covered with plaster or lined with small tiles . To work you need to prepare:

At the beginning of the work, drawings are made, calculations are made of the dimensions of the pedestal, the portal itself and the top shelf. The location of the future hearth is marked on the floor and wall, and a metal profile for the frame is cut. Secure the pieces of base to the floor and wall, install vertical strips of metal.

The dimensions of the frame are transferred to sheets of drywall, and the details are cut out. They are attached to the frame with self-tapping screws, and the corners are covered with sickle tape. The seams need to be puttied, the structure is finished with the selected material. Then a tabletop is placed on top and an electric fireplace is connected. The portal can be covered with a layer of plaster and painted with white paint. A light wooden shelf will complement the country style structure. If you need to cover the fireplace with tiles, then it is first primed and the material is secured with liquid nails.

Wood and plywood

You can also make an electric fireplace with your own hands from plywood. Step-by-step instructions for working with this material are almost no different from creating a plasterboard portal. Wooden and plywood sheets are strong and thick, so they can withstand not only the weight of the fireplace itself, but also equipment - a TV or a stereo system.

You need to prepare the following tools:

In a free room, a frame is assembled from bars and sheathed with plywood blanks. Parts from the material are cut out with a jigsaw and screwed to the base with self-tapping screws. Then the hearth is leveled with sandpaper and covered with varnish or paint in several layers. It can also be decorated with baguettes and parts made of rounded timber.

Installation of heat generator

The constructed fireplace does not have a chimney, so an electric convector is used to heat the room. It is inserted into the recess on the front side of the portal, the cord is led out along the baseboard to the socket. Then they mask the generator with a fireplace grate, covering the hole in the portal with it.

At the end of the design, you need to lay the fireplace grates on the base. They can be replaced with reinforcement rods. They are placed at a distance of 2 cm from each other parallel to the front part of the structure. You can pre-cut grooves on the pedestal for laying iron rods.

Instead of a convector, infrared heaters are sometimes used; they are mounted in the walls even before the portal frame is assembled. In the room, heat will spread to a distance of 1-1.5 m from the fireplace. Heaters provide an opportunity to save on electricity bills.

Imitation coals

You can decorate an electric fireplace with decorative smoldering coals. To prepare them you will need:

• plastic bags;
• polyurethane foam;
• LED garland;
• red, brown and black paint.

The bags are filled with foam and crushed as it hardens. Then the mass is pulled out by cutting the polyethylene. The inner part is removed from each part, and sections with green and blue lamps are separated from the garland. Several red or yellow diodes are placed in each empty coal and secured with tape. All parts are assembled into one mass and secured together with foam. Then they cover the coals with paint, applying black color to the side and bottom edges. The structure is placed on the grate and the garland is connected to the network. The flickering effect creates an imitation of smoldering coals.

Creating a portal for an electric fireplace with your own hands will reduce the cost of home renovation. When designing the structure, simple materials are used, and all drawings and calculations can be done independently. The hearth is decorated with artificial coals and a real fireplace grate.