I Built a $15,000 Fake Fireplace Just To Cover This Up

almost every single house I've ever owned when it came to outdoor living space hanging out with the family it always had this uneventful monstrosity it looks like an incomplete space and it needs something to be more Grand and its own little statement piece in order to do that we need to blend canvas ladies and gentlemen I present to you it's Wrecking day [Music] I'm scared to find out what the framers were anticipating for this because it had to be cut out for something I need a bigger ladder so I've never actually removed Stone I've installed stone exhibit a I don't know how hard it is to pop it off only Intuit is to do it I guess [Music] so ends up coming off it's not necessarily the mortar but you rip it out the whole chicken wire so that wire is ripping so you can pull it off [Music] not terrible not terrible at all probably two hours worth of work let's talk about the mission I know I want it to be all Stone top to bottom I know I want the TV recessed inside and actually put an outlet and not use an extension cord I know I want a big mantle here so what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring this out to about 12 inches I'm going to create a fake fireplace and then put some kind of lighting mechanism to make it look like it's moving it's an accent piece and then on the bottom there's going to be what's called a hearth I believe it's called basically a bench for your fireplace I'm curious to hear what you guys might think about it I think it's a great idea to conceal this and make it look natural but it's gonna be a little bit cheesy but we're we're gonna make sure it looks awesome first things first let's start framing this thing out [Music] [Applause] [Music] my base plates on this is 12 inches coming out this is going to be for the bench there let's start slapping on another layer to stack this to be three inches on top and then we'll start building our walls let me show you the lumber we're looking at 14 16 foot long two by fours 280 bucks and yeah I need a bigger trailer to haul this stuff foreign [Music] mentioned the base plate on top but we need a base plate on top I could see the truss is sticking out so I could just mail it right to them that's a base plate it's top plate [Music] guys I have some crazy news that I need to share with you I'm super excited to be working with omaze to offer you the chance to win a hundred thirty thousand dollar tiny home from True Form timing we all love tiny homes right the ability to disconnect from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and go to a secluded getaway and just finally recharge well guess what I'm excited to be working with omaze to offer you a chance to win a 130 000 tiny home from True Form tiny and support a great cause the national park Foundation the national parks Foundation generates private support and builds strategic Partnerships to protect and enhance America's national parks for present and future Generations so here's what you're going to do head over to omaze.com forward slash Mr buildit to enter for your chance to win Irene I love any opportunity we get to stay at a tiny home over the weekend get out of town maybe in the woods just keep it simple decompress and really focus on things that matter to us the most and if we weren't staying in the place we would definitely Airbnb it out and make a little bit extra cash flow so for your chance to win a 100 thirty thousand dollar tiny home from True Form tiny head over to omaze.com forward slash Mr build it and enter now in 2021 omaze raised over 27 million dollars and was given to charity poured an amazing cause of the national parks Foundation now let's get back into this video let's go this is probably the second time I've ever used a framing gun uh I'm trying to get it at an angle and it's having trouble like getting it all the way in then I realized well you take this little Safeguard off and now you have these claws that dig into the side of the wood and then you can jam it through it's just to show like I don't know everything I'm sure you guys didn't guess that I'm kidding I know everything [Music] [Applause] the rules not rules that's not a board game the code these vents exhaust vents for these fireplaces have to be 12 inches uh below a certain structure whether it's a soffit or anything else so right now I have a 12 inch entire perimeter to make sure this once it's housed in it can still safely put out the exhaust in case you're wondering what's the difference with the structure here what happened well your boy done messed up I didn't consider the width of my TV I had to take you down and uh consider the stonework the OSB they'll go on to accommodate at least three inches completely around to be able to hang the TV comfortably get some supporting pieces and then a little support it on top and then we'll start doing more supporting that's like the name of today's day support we need emotional support [Music] foreign called the neck clamp not taught by a lot of framing schools but uh that's something you learn on the streets in all reality is this blocking that I'm putting right here you probably don't need to have it but they're scrap pieces it's such a small thing you might as well over build an underbuilt [Music] these recessed cavities there's two options option A is I can create a bunch of stretchers put pocket holes line them on the outside and then just lay OSB on it option b is we nail a 2x4 across here put one stretcher on each side and then put OSB on top so many options let's go to the second one it's a lot easier [Music] foreign [Music] I don't need it to be super long because I'm also going to have overhang of the top that I'm gonna put onto maybe concrete yeah maybe we'll do concrete so let's start building the bench oh we got our bench let's try to figure out some electrical huh so now I'm really thankful that there is this hole here so I can actually see what's going on and I see wire coming down below so that's probably powering our fireplace let me look on the other side and see what it looks like all right perfect so I have 14 2 cable sticking all the way through and it's nice because this has pigtails already on them so we'll create a hole on the back side and try to fish it through this hole and just tap into those lugs highly sophisticated Tool uh it's only done by special order you don't find any hardware store it's a broken ski pool gotta get creative come on oh victory ski pole for the win now that we've got our cable I have to tack it on side of the stud so it's not going anywhere it's roughly middle right black cables hot cable we don't have power yet copper or ground white is our common I'm gonna be so excited to not have an extension cord run for this thing anymore hot wire here it's upside down it doesn't matter but the OCD part of me thinks the world will end if you keep it upside down okay let's connect power to it okay but today's tools almost all of my tools are cordless I actually had to struggle finding something I could plug in see if we have power yes we got power baby nice work all right beautiful now that we got that figured out ladies and gentlemen we gotta start building our bench or what is it called today here first here here no it's her it's like Earth but with an x-ray so the mold for our concrete bench it's gonna be made out of Melanie why because it delaminates a lot easier than plywood or anything like that I have four 80 pound bags of the crack resistance which means I think it's like fiber reinforced inside of it the hardest part is going to be making my mold because it's not a traditional rectangle in fact check this out we're looking at a lot of different variables on this one I'm gonna start cutting it cut a bunch of little strips on the sides to make a little fence around it and then I'll show you the prep process [Music] a couple of things I learned over the years about prepping is that the bottom part is your top part so once this is all molded up you flip it over and that's the part that everybody sees a pretty part uh you want to use some car wax this is Turtle Wax on the seams the most importantly but also I'll use it on the mold so it could release the concrete a lot easier when we do the next step which is taking our Brown caulk and going around the edges using the caulking tool to press and round over all the edges so they're not sharp the once it dries the wax is going to allow for it to release the caulking that we're already left with the middle part the cleanest part and it broke a glove okay it's just like me I never clean my tools and I'm done with them I just wait till the next time I have to use them we're going to press this in and then it'll create almost three lines two outer and one inner the inner part is our rounded over Edge the outer parts when they dry we'll peel them off it's actually really satisfying to watch we're just about ready to start doing the concrete my mold is looking perfect I got my little leveler out here just a 2x6 my shovel got all my stuff all set up in the back here so I got the first inch and a half done uh the reason why I'm pausing here is because I want to lay down steel reinforcement that way when this stuff expands or contracts this thing ain't gonna crack and it's going to be the strongest piece of concrete that I have probably ever made no that's false I made something thicker than this about three and a half inches anywho I'll cut it a size lay it down and then cover it with the rest of the concrete oh and by the way you like my shirt break something to learn something model of my day go pick one up in the description below [Music] I am sweating like a pig in a farmer's market now the biggest hurdle we need to overcome is getting the air bubbles out so important you can't overdo it because you're still gonna miss them and you have to patch them up with Portland cement or something like that a few ways to do it you can shake your table but the most efficient way efficient that's not a word efficient way is using a reciprocating saw without a blade on it will create a vibration towards the side or a sander but I find Sanders orbiting Sanders they don't make that many oscillations so we'll start getting these air bubbles out and uh see how she looks listen battery powered oscillating tools are are really helpful and they work a lot of times getting these air bubbles out but I'll tell you what call me old-fashioned but um sometimes manual stimulation works really really well for getting air bubbles out of concrete this puffy has been drying overnight we're officially one day it's looking beautiful this might be the best slab I've ever done it's nice and warm it's crazy to think but on a molecular basis happening over there science Rules science Rules I'm coming up with plastic because I don't want to get too dehydrated uh and in fact I skipped a step from not doing the sheeting on the two by fours because this is going to sit for four days we might as well get ahead of the schedule here so while this is curing we're going to start cheating today we have four sheets of OSB about 60 bucks we're gonna start covering the sucker up and it's going to start looking like like something I am extra excited about today because I get to wear pants finally in like two months it's no longer 100 degrees it's actually supposed to be 80 the entire week I think Falls here man it's nice to not be swearing my face off and I get to wear my favorite pants and miss that M4 rebars from Ariat they're fantastic I got a discount code for you guys if you want a nice pair of work pants they'll be in the description go check it out thank you [Music] have mentioned how much I love using the nail gun foreign anticipate the mantle I need a mantle here and I didn't create the space for the mantle so the mantle that I'm going to use is this old barn wood mantle it's like eight inches by inch eight inches it's Square it's large I like it's got a lot of character what I have to do is build this platform up by another six inches to make it a total of nine here and uh I gotta move that up about six inches to make sure it all accommodate the TV all right so no matter how much I hate these kind of setbacks we got it all done I got a nice beefy 10 inch section for The Mantel which the mantle is only going to be four no eight by eight and then just ended up moving everything about seven inches higher which is not bad now we got where we want to go let's finish this thing off so to hang this giant piece up here I'm gonna use the same trick I use with drywall just set a nail that the sheet will rest on then all we have to do is put it on top of it and then secure it I wonder if drywall guys learned this trick from roofers I don't know which came first I don't know is I'm just glad this trick exists foreign [Music] this puppy is done uh let's go check on the concrete it's been a Brady couple of days and I'm pretty sure it's secured enough for us to start opening the molds look at her man she looks good let's pop this thing open I hope that didn't even require much hitting I think that's the benefits of using wax on this [Music] I was nervous about those measurements too because the mold has to be made upside down oh man this took a lot out of us uh mostly me and maybe I don't know uh the rest of the guys look like they're put together so I'm still trying to catch my breath this is 400 pounds that's eight that's four 80 pound concrete bags I can't believe I was actually trying to flip it over myself whoa that came out so cool it couldn't be perfect the sizes and dimensions could not be perfect I was sweating because I was like I got to make these mold and the molds will be upside down obviously we couldn't get all the bubbles out of here you can take Portland cement and it's just a very fine cement mix it up and then use a putty knife to fill in all these voids and essentially just creates a discoloration like that done it before many times looks great and it covers up all these pores so I think that's exactly what we're gonna do so carbon paper keeps all the moisture out we have to make sure it's overlaid kind of like shingles so we have to start at the bottom and then overlay it by a couple inches as we keep going [Music] you know what this feels like like I'm working on Macy's wrapping Christmas presents and this is up one of those obnoxious Christmas presents okay [Music] oh hey sorry I'm laugh this this stuff's called galvanized laugh sorry cheesy dad joke we're starting so on the left have you seen the grill video this stuff is required to put Stone on these Honeycombs point up that's where they're supposed to be installed we're going to take our inch in quarter nails start smacking this thing on overlapping it by two inches let's have fun it's like nobody's having fun with this this stuff sucks [Music] gonna finish this up keep tracking along the hardest part with this is keeping it tight but uh I think we're doing okay seven sheets of last later I think I'm done with last for a while we gotta get asked that mortar mix it up do two coats uh well technically one coat the score coat which we basically just cover all of this with the flat side of the trowel um and then after that we'll do the scratch coat that's when we just flip the trowel over and we create these little grates that it could help the mortar when we put the stone manure on Stick better let's get the mortar the consistency these mortars with the guys that do this professionally say is you mix it to the point you can put it on a trowel and put at 45 degrees and it still stays on uh because we had these Honeycombs facing up the advantage behind that is by you pressing down it feeds it a lot easier than any other way I got a crap ton of this to do [Music] okay it's D-Day everything we've been prepping for comes to this moment spent a lot of money on the stone like a lot brings like 1500 bucks so far hopefully I don't use it all hopefully I can return some of it but it is what it is I'm okay this is being my third Stone project I've ever done here's what I've actually learned to help me improve they do say do the corners first the only problem is it's easy when you do the corners that are small like this but once you get to the big Corners like this they end up sagging a little bit and it ends up screwing up your pattern so what I'm going to do differently this time is do the corners but then do one row at a time so it has something to rest below it when it comes to installation this beautiful stone already has all my little score coats and scratch coats pre-built lay this on about an inch thick get it in here push it into the mud stops starts coming out scrape it off now here's the magic behind it there's a suction cup that happens by pressing it on it's squeezing out all the water and keeping like a suction cup on there in fact check this wild thing out if you put it right here that's not going anywhere until you take it off but now it's super dry here so don't move it once you put it on I'm gonna be here a long time oh one last thing because I'm a w forgot to say make sure you hydrate get a spray bottle spray down first then put this on because you don't want the stone to suck out all the moisture before it has time to settle [Music] [Applause] no way no way I didn't even plan for that we're living in simulation people I'm telling you stuff like this has just happened oh that's perfect [Music] [Applause] [Music] almost done with the part below the mantle we're about uh I would say a solid third complete here's a little trick that I'm showing for over the mantle part so it doesn't slant not over the mantle under the mantle part is I just put a 2x4 underneath the screws uh do the stone on and then tomorrow when it dries you can just pop it off and we'll have a clean straight line other than that how nice does this beam look with this Stone looks so cool I can't wait for it to be done really can't wait to take you down because I'm getting ready to be done so this morning we're starting day three on this I'm saying we I'm doing all the work here let's be honest it's day three I'm anticipating I got two more days to go so a solid week if you're gonna do some of this big I I did the same thing as I did down below to hold the center pieces up I just put a trim board here the reason why I want them to stop evenly so therefore I could put a piece of trim and boarding inside of here so it'll have to be like encapsulated and wrapped right now we just we're almost done with this side we're gonna jump on that side so that it evenly kind of carries up and I don't screw up any kind of patterns [Music] [Applause] now I I'm not tired from doing stone for three days and now it rains that's perfect come on foreign news officially done with this stonework four solid days today's just a touch-up day last piece of Briggs in and the great news on top of that is I was able to return about 300 bucks worth of stone back so all this was about eleven hundred dollars just with stone plus like 10 bags of mortar now what we're gonna do next is finish this section I took the felt paper off because the way I'm gonna approach it I don't really need the felt paper let me show you how I'm gonna handle that there's a few options I was contemplating either maybe Cedar maybe shiplack planks but it's just gonna be a small section so it's not really going to be noticeable so here's the best budget friendly and like a a legitimate way to actually do it that you would actually do it for the outside so I bought quarter inch this is siding so I'll just put the siding on both on the back side and the side sides and then trim it off right here where the stone will be it's basically edge profile it's functional and relatively inexpensive this is roughly about 150 bucks which I was unaware how pricey siding can get anyway Let's Start Throwing It Up got the first siding panel cut the electrical box out measure…