Welcome December!
Cody and I have been some busy beavers around the house lately and we just completed our most favorite project so far. When we purchased our house back in April we made it a goal of ours to have our fireplace re-done by Christmas, that way I would have a mantle to decorate and hang our stockings from of course! Boy did we cut it close, but I will say it didn't take as long as I thought it would to complete and it turned out absolutely beautiful!
**We have no intentions of copywriting or stealing other's content. You can see the article
here that we referenced to for the construction of the mantle itself.**
To start off the mantle, we went to Lowe's and bought 3 pine boards that were 6'x6"x1". We picked through a bunch of them and tried to get the ones that had the best knots and grain but also weren't too warped. We cut each board to the length we wanted the mantle (around 69" long). Then we laid it out in the pictures above just to figure out which board we wanted where and how we wanted the knots and the grain to be placed. Once we figured out exactly how we wanted to lay out the boards we made sure to label each one with pencil so we wouldn't forget how we wanted to put it together.
Next we used some wood glue to roughly keep the boards together. We glued it on the inside and clamped the edges together as seen above, to avoid any spacing and to get a nice clean and even surface. This is why you want to avoid warped boards!
Once the glue is dry, go ahead and place some nails along the edges. We kept clamping it as we went along each edge just to ensure there would be no gaps between the boards.
Next it was time to work on the sides! We just used some scrap wood we had laying around because these pieces were going to get covered up anyway (shown in a few steps away).
After the sides were nailed in place, we sanded down the entire mantle to make sure to remove any excess glue, remove any unwanted marks, and to make sure all surfaces were smooth and even. Once it's sanded, it's onto the fun part- distressing! We hammered it, clawed it, and torched it to create some contrasting marks. This is the part to be creative and have fun! Keep in mind any burn marks made with the torch can be sanded away to be lightened. We went back and forth ALOT from burning and sanding it away until we were finally happy with it. Remember, you want the distressing to just be "accents." The knots and the grain of the wood should be the focal points while just little dents and divets create a slight worn look to the wood.
Once we were finally happy with the distressing it was just about time to move onto the staining! But first we wanted to finish the sides and make them blend more with the rest of the wood. We we're looking EVERYWHERE for wood veneer to just stick over the sides and stain with the rest of the mantle. You can order wood veneer online through Lowe's, Home Depot, Walmart, etc. but we could not find it anywhere in stores. So since we are impatient people, we had to think of something to substitute. Cody's dad cut us about 1/8"-1/4" thick pieces of wood from the ends of a big block of pine. We glued them on the sides (using the clamp of course to make sure there were no gaps) and then sanded them down a good bit until they rounded over the edges to blend with the rest of the wood. We didn't nail these pieces on because the nail won't hold such a thin piece. I'll say, this step made such a difference and definitely makes the mantle look like one solid beam of wood.
Finally the easy part- STAIN. I used two different shades of stain to get a nice weathered look. The first coat I used was
Minwax Weathered Oak. I painted on a decently thick coat, let it sit for about 2-3 minutes and wiped it off well. The small 8oz. can is more than enough for this project! I actually had these two stains left over from a different project and was a little scared that it wouldn't be enough, but the mantle only ended up using about half the can.
I let the first coat dry for about 1-2 hours. For the second coat I used
Minwax Jacobean. This one I didn't let sit as long since it's a darker stain. If it's not dark enough for your taste you can always apply another coat to get it darker. I did each surface one by one with this because I was afraid of letting it sit too long. Paint it on, let sit for about 1 minute or less, wipe it off well.
After another 1-2 hours it was time for the polyurethane! I applied this in a nice thick coat, but also making sure to catch any drips or runs. You want to let this completely dry before applying the second coat! (About 3-4 hours) If not, your piece will always be a little tacky. I made this mistake on my wine cabinet. I was rushing it, not allowing it to completely dry in between coats and even until this day I will touch it and it has a little "stickiness" to it. After the first coat dries, lightly rub some sand paper across all surfaces making it rough, wipe off any loose particles, apply the second coat, and let dry completely again.
The mantle is now finished and ready to be hung! To anchor the mantle to the fireplace, Cody built a mounting bracket which you can see above. We just used scrap wood once again to build this. You can see that it's an easy concept to put together, it's just a lot of measuring. The original idea we had was to slide the mantle over the bracket and then screw the mantle directly to the mount from the top surface of the mantle down into the wooden pieces that stick out on the mount. We have not screwed the mantle to the mount yet because we would like to avoid placing screws in the mantle if we can. As long as the mantle isn't moving back and forth off he bracket you shouldn't need to screw them together. Once you have the mounting brackets built and screwed into your wall structure you can just slide your mantle right over the bracket and WALA! The mantle and the mount are both easily removable so you can move it to another room or another house if you ever have the need to bring it with you!
As you can tell, we ended up deciding at the last minute to paint our fireplace before mounting everything in place, which I am SO glad we decided to do. I can't believe the transformation our living room has made just over a weekend's time!
For an easy weekend's project re-create your old fashioned fireplace for a clean and modern look! I couldn't be more happy with how ours turned out (especially right before Christmas!) I hope a few people will find this article useful for their home. Please feel free to contact me with any questions on this project! Comments and responses are welcome below. Also feel free to share any related projects of your own! Thanks for reading!
Until next time,
Lauren Taylor
