How To Install a Fire Screen Curtain on a Brick Fireplace
Our wood-burning fireplace is located in our hearth room and eat-in kitchen area. It’s right in a major walkway between our laundry room and kitchen. So placing a stand alone fire screen that sticks out would be a pain in the rear!
People would be tripping over it all the time. Not to mention it just seems like a pain to have to move a screen around when you need to attend to a fire.
So instead, we decided to permanently install a fire screen curtain onto the brick portion of our fireplace.
Here’s how we did it and the tools you need to do it too!
As you can see in the video, we permanently installed a fire screen to our fireplace instead of buying a free standing screen.
Hopefully watching Jay go through the steps of how to install our fire screen will help you install your own fire screen curtain. Each one is probably different and every fireplace is different.
But the steps should be about the same.
Of course we had to do some rigging. So hopefully this will give you some ideas of how to install your fire screen if you’re in the same situation!
Here’s what you need (or what we used) to do this DIY project:
– Fireplace Mesh Screen Curtain
– Adjustable Fireplace Curtain Rod Kit
– Hammer drill
– Masonry bit (3/16”) OR this one
– Standard drill, but not necessary – you could use ratchet for whole thing easily
– Ratchet set
– Tape measure
– Masonry screws (1/4”)
– Clamps or something to hold rods together if necessary
7 Steps for How To Install a Fire Screen Curtain
1. Buy Your Screen and Rod
Buy a fireplace screen curtain and rod that will fit the width and height of your fireplace opening. Here are the ones we chose: Fireplace Mesh Screen Curtain and Adjustable Fireplace Curtain Rod Kit.
2. Measure for Placement
Measure how high off the ground your screen rods need to be attached. Mark your spot. We placed ours in the middle of the brick opening at the proper height. (See video for specifics.)
3. Drill Pilot Holes
Using a hammer drill, drill pilot holes for the screws that will attach your rod to the wall.
Jay accidentally drilled the holes too big for the screws that the rod came with. So he had to buy new screws that were a bit bigger.
So make sure your drill bit is the proper size for your screws.
4. Thread Screen Onto Rod
Um… yeah… do that. 🙂
5. Attach Rod to Brick
Using the screws and the holes on the ends of the rods, attach your rod to the brick on both sides.
Pro Tip: It’s better to use a ratchet set here instead of drilling the screws into the brick with an electric drill. Screws strip easily in brick and other masonry! So be careful!
6. Attach Rods Together
Use small clamps to hold the rods together if necessary. See the video to see the types of clamps we used and where we installed them on the rods.
7. Attach Handles
Your rod or screen should’ve come with handles to pull the screen from side to side.
Because of how we installed our set, the handle attachment holes were too small to go over both rods. So Jay simply opened the curtain rings on the screen and attached the handles there.
Again, you can watch the video for a closeup of what this looks like.
The End
Let us know if you have any questions about this project below!
Especially if the set you order OR your fireplace setup is different from ours, we’d be happy to help you figure out how to make it work!
* Links here are Amazon affiliate links. We’ll get a little kickback if you choose to buy these products, but the price is the same for you!