How to Make a Hearth Guard

DIY Hearth Guard

keep baby safe 

and kids safe

When we moved into our new house earlier this year, one of the first things we had to do to keep the kids safe was to put some kind of padding or bumper around the brick fireplace.  We have a double sided fireplace that the kids are always running and playing around.  I searched online for how to babyproof the fireplace and found the hearth gaurd and other various hearth kushion products but with having two brick fireplace edges to protect, it was going to cost me close to $100 for everything I needed.  So I headed down to Home Depot (or Lowes) can't remember which one it was...and bought a roll of garage door weather stripping for around $20 and some sticky velcro at the dollar store and was able to babyproof and make my own hearth guard, protecting 2 fireplaces for under $25.

 Get your hook and loop fasteners

 and your rubber garage weather stripping

 open up the velcro fastener and lay out flat

 Then fasten the two velcro strips together

 Cut the long velcro strip into smaller 3-4 inch strips

 Remove paper to reveal sticky adhesive and apply velcro to bottom of weather stripping

Peel off the remaining paper to reveal the sticky adhesive and then carefully line up your weather stripping along your fireplace edge and firmly press down to secure the hearth protector.  It's not the most beautiful thing to look at but I figure it we are going to have to put some ugly rubber on the fireplace to keep the kids safe, we didn't want to spend $100 on it when it's equally safe yet equally unattractive to do it for less that $25.  After doing to fronts and sides of both fireplaces, we still had some left over that's come in handy for other projects around the house.