Wood Mantel
My mother in law recently decided to update her living room and trusted Nate and I to give her fireplace a little face lift. In order to achieve the look she wanted, we built her a new wood mantel!
First, I painted her fire place Valspar bistro white in an eggshell finish.
Essentially, we just wrapped her existing mantel top with wood.
For the top piece we used a 1x12. We measured and cut that to size, then nailed it into the existing mantel top using 1 1/2” brad nails.
Next we measured each side and nailed a 1x6 to the top piece of wood once they were cut to size.
Next we measured the front portion of the mantel. We cut a 1x6 to size and nailed it to the front of the mantel.
Using wood filler, we filled the holes and cracks joining each piece together.
We then sanded it down until it was smooth. Wiped it free of dust and particles. Then stained the wood filler to match the wood. It’s stained in Provincial by Minwax.
To finish it off we sealed it with three coats of matte polycrilic.
If you choose to do this project, your measurements will be different than ours, however the same process can be used.
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Nikki,
I can’t tell & I don’t think you mention finishing the mantle with a bottom board? Can you add a photo or instructions on how it looks from below if you are sitting on the floor in front of fireplace? Or is it left open?
You did an amazing job.‼️‼️‼️
Also what was your total cost?
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I, too, have a HUGE (ugly) fireplace and a dinky thin mantel. I've looked high and low to find a way to beef it up, and here it is! It sits in the corner, but I'm sure my husband can find a way to make it work. Thank you for posting this!!
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Much better look with the white surround and beefier mantel. But - why didn't you remove that outdated wall mirror and replace with a framed one? I think it needs that finishing touch.
This is exactly what I was wondering if it was possibly to make it look like you have. I am going to cover over the ugly dark mirror box things on my fireplace, no idea what is behind that mirror and afraid to find out so I decided to do a cheap peel and stick tile on it, after failing with peel and stick wallpaper that the pattern didn't line up and bubbled up too. Any way then I thought the mantel is kind of small, it looks like it goes all the way to the wall but the weird mirror box covers it. Long story short I would need to have it cut to wrap around the box I see from your pictures. Do you think I could make the mantel come out farther using this technique?
Great project. It looks awesome. I have a question though… I see you did the top, sides, and front… no mention of underneath. Is that exposed?