Mantel Renovation
When we bought our house it had a really nice fireplace, but the mantel was a different story. It was a chunk of wood that was L bracketed into the brick. Not classy, not cool. If you're into the country look, it was great, but I'm not. I like more of a contemporary look. Nothing too modern, but not too country either. Here is the before picture of when it had the chunk of wood... yay Christmas!
So when brainstorming for this project I thought of a great idea to attach a piece of wood crown molding, not the fake plastic stuff, but actual wood. I cut one piece to the length of the original chunk of wood. Then the sides were cut to the edge of the brick of the fireplace not the edge of chunk of wood because there was a gap and it would look funny. Once everything was cut, we gorilla glued and nailed the pieces in place. Once dry I sanded the corners A) so they wouldn't stab anybody when/if they got hit by it and B) because why would anything in my house ever be perfectly cornered/level. I wood puttied the nail holes and any holes in the original wood or any gaps between the crown molding and the chunk of wood. After that was dry and sanded, it was time to paint on some stain. We chose Minwax Polyshades in Espresso Satin. Because we were working with two different woods with two different kinds of grains and had wood puttied to fix holes and gaps, it was better to paint on the stain. When you paint on this particular stain it covers all the imperfections. You have to wait 6 hours between coats, and we put on two coats. Here is the before picture after we installed the crown molding...
So when brainstorming for this project I thought of a great idea to attach a piece of wood crown molding, not the fake plastic stuff, but actual wood. I cut one piece to the length of the original chunk of wood. Then the sides were cut to the edge of the brick of the fireplace not the edge of chunk of wood because there was a gap and it would look funny. Once everything was cut, we gorilla glued and nailed the pieces in place. Once dry I sanded the corners A) so they wouldn't stab anybody when/if they got hit by it and B) because why would anything in my house ever be perfectly cornered/level. I wood puttied the nail holes and any holes in the original wood or any gaps between the crown molding and the chunk of wood. After that was dry and sanded, it was time to paint on some stain. We chose Minwax Polyshades in Espresso Satin. Because we were working with two different woods with two different kinds of grains and had wood puttied to fix holes and gaps, it was better to paint on the stain. When you paint on this particular stain it covers all the imperfections. You have to wait 6 hours between coats, and we put on two coats. Here is the before picture after we installed the crown molding...
We kept the L brackets attached because frankly we don't know any other easy way to keep the wood attached to the mantel. Here is the mantel after one coat of the Minwax Polyshades...
Even this was an improvement, but not quite yet finished. Here is the final product...
It looks black, but it's really not. It's just a really dark dark brown. Almost black, but not quite. I love the transformation, so much better! Are you doing any renovations? Have fun!
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