There's nothing more homey during Christmas than stockings hanging on a beautifully decorated mantel while the fireplace crackles with a glowing fire.
Like this……..
We've lived in our house for 12 years and I've never been able to decorate a mantel. We had a tv niche above the fireplace so there was no room for a mantel. I thought I would like the tv above the fireplace to save on floor space but I really missed having a mantel.
This is what it looked like before……
Well, we changed that!
We filled in the tv niche. You can read about it here and here.
We removed the trim around the slate surround.
We found the perfect used mantel at the ReStore and we attached it to the fireplace first by nailing backers into the drywall with our trusty nail gun.
Then we nailed the mantel into the backers.
Can you see the small gap at the top of the slate surround and below the mantel in the above picture? It wasn't a perfect fit so we remedied that situation by adding a piece of chair rail molding all the way around the opening.
Because we stained the butcherblock counters in our bookcases and the cabinets that flank the fireplace a dark chestnut color, I thought it would look cool for the fireplace mantel to be the same color. So we added a 1x10x6 piece of pine to the existing mantel so there would be a 1/2" hangover. I stained it with two coats of Minwax English Chestnut and six coats of polyurethane.
We then turned our attention to the area above the mantel. I really like all the plank walls I've seen around blogland so as usual I copied the experts!! We bought a package of beadboard planks from Lowes. It contained 6- 8' planks with beadboard on one side and wider planks on the other (which was the side we are going to use). We also bought baseboard molding (5 1/4" wide) for the picture frame around the planks.
We first attached crown molding to the top that matched the built-in bookcases.
The LOML was very excited to have an excuse to whip out his new compound miter saw!! A very intimidating machine it is. I was waiting for him to run into the house minus a few fingers!! Thank goodness he's still got them all!
We measured the box above the mantel, cut each of the four pieces for the picture frame molding with 45 degree angles.
Then we measured the distance between the side frames and cut each plank board. We used 11 1/2 boards total.
I primed and painted everything with two coats of paint and …….
What do y'all think? I finally have my mantel. I love it!!!!
I'm having fun decorating it for Christmas.
Now a little fun 'Before & After'. I always love them.
I hope y'all are enjoying this holiday season. As you rush around from store to store, event to event, let's remember the reason for the season!
Linking up to The Dedicated House
Love y'all,
Linda
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This is beautiful. I really love what you did. I've a similar situation. Unfortunately, I've no where else to put the TV, so keep looking at other's mantels to try to come up with a way to add a mantel just below the niche and not have it look silly.
Thank you so much Mavis! We’ve had the tv niche for a long time and we were tired of looking up to watch tv. So the corner fits our family room best. Good luck with your mantle!! ~Linda
so pretty and i love the reindeer!!! xoxo