DIY Hearth Pad
Learn how to make a slate herringbone hearth pad. This project was pretty straightforward and easy to complete, giving the wood stove a custom look.
Servings: 1 pad
Cost: 5
Equipment
- Sponge
- Tile saw
- Miter saw
- Table saw
- Drill
Ingredients
- Tile
- Grout
- Backer board
- Trim
- Screws
- Adhesive
- Thinset mortar
Instructions
- First, choose your tile. I selected some rectangular, black, slate tile in the 4″ by 12″ size.
- Next, choose the pattern. For this project we went with herringbone.
- Determine the size of the pad. Ours needed to be 54 by 48 inches.
- Cut the backer board to size.
- Find and mark the center of the board (which would also be the center of the chimney), drawing a line from the back to the front.
- Start at the bottom and work your way up, laying the tile.
- Trace the first row of tiles in the correct position, and then butter that space and lay the tiles.
- Set the tile at a 45-degree angle, using a speed square, with one corner touching the center line.
- Add mortar to the backing board and to the tile using a trowel, then place the tile in place making sure it stays at the 45-degree angle.
- Place the next tile under the bottom right corner of the first tile, placing spacers.
- Continue spreading mortar and placing tiles with spacers. Ninety percent of this project was super simple. The hard part comes with having to make all of the small edge cuts.
- To make the edge cuts, lay the tile down and mark where it needs to be cut using a straight edge. Cut using a tile saw.
- Once the tile is in place and is allowed to dry for 24 hours, it is time to grout.
- Spread grout on using a grout floater, and then wipe off using a wet sponge or towel.
- Finish the edgest with some trim.
- Measure each side and cut the trim on 45-degree angles with a miter saw so the corners would match up.
- Paint or stain the trim.
- Secure into place. We used an adhesive to attach the trim to the tile. To make it more secure, we added a few small screws to the corners.
Notes
How thick does a hearth pad need to be?
- This could be directly related to code. Some places require a hearth pad to be as little as two inches thick, where others may require it to be four inches thick.