apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

We have the same dilemma, only ours is a gas fireplace with the fake logs and rocks that leave black stains on you if you touch them. Things I've considered so far:

1. Having a piece of wood cut to fit into the space, painting it with chalkboard paint and letting the kids draw on it.

2. Wood board concept, only covered with batting and a pretty fabric.

3. Putting a small bookshelf in front of the fireplace, or having shallow bookshelves built INTO the hole.

Currently, we have a baby gate covering the space - NOT attractive and not particularly functional since the gate doesn't cover the entire height, thus allowing our toddler to throw items in the fireplace still.

I'm interested in hopefully more easy to execute ideas!

We just put a fireplace screen in front of it, and then pushed the coffee table up against that. (The coffee table came from Ikea and is filled with baskets of toys)

This isn't the most attractive solution, but it was a cost effective one for us. We took two of the long foam water floaties, cut a section out of each one, and attached them to our hearth with adhesive velcro tape. It's been there for a year now and is still holding strong. And it's much better at protecting our little one than the kind you can purchase for $40 or more at the store.

One solution my husband and I did after having pillows all over the fireplace for about 3 weeks was we eventually just went on line and searched different baby proofing product companies and finally found one that was good. We purchased a hearth guard and extension in order to fit the fireplace and it works really well. We bought the two products from http:www.babypro.com

I highly recommend and it is worth the money. No more pillows!