I Finally Finished My Mantle Project
Well, when my wife and I moved in to our home over twenty years ago I wanted to add a mantle the the fireplace. Unfortunately at the time I had just given up doing much woodworking due to several reasons and didn't really have the time and tools to make the mantle.
As many of you know from all my tool posts, I'm excited about getting back into woodworking so I decided that the mantle would be the appropriate place to start.
Last year we had a portrait painted of our first puppies (litter of two), as puppies and after they became AKC Champions. We wanted a place to show it off, but as you can see in the before picture below, the spot we chose just didn't work because of the dark background. More recently we purchased a bronze sculpture of a cowboy with a basset hound by Walter Ross, a fantastic western sculptor, and needed a place to display it, other than the dining room table. We decided that a mantle and space above would the perfect place to display both.
BEFORE:
Mantle Before W.JPG
As you can see the only "mantle" we had was just a row of bricks. The wood above is a piece of painted rough plywood (it used to match the front door which we changed to an oak door several years ago). It didn't show off the picture very well.
I didn't take any pictures of what was underneath the plywood, but there was nothing to attach a mantle to. I had th cut away some of the plywood and put in some framing so that I could attach metal brackets to hold the weight of the mantle.
AFTER:
Mantle After 1W.JPG
I hope that you can see a difference. It's hard to get a good picture with all the light in the room. The light wood above the mantle is unstained white pine plywood. The rest, including the mantle and trim is stained red oak. I finished all the wood with simigloss poly.
Here's a closer look at the actual mantle--
Mantle After 2W.JPG
---and the space above.
Mantle After 3W.JPG
I must add that I had a blast with this project. Finally I feel that I've accomplished a project that I've been wanting to do. The most unfortunate part is that we plan to move within the next two years. But, we thought since this is the first room people see as they enter our home that this would be a good selling point for buyers.
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Originally Posted by fred woltersdorf
Thanks for the complement on the puppies. As is evident from what little of our home that is shown in the pictures, our dogs are important. Some of our friends cal our house the Basset Hound Museum. Since we don't have kids, our basset hounds (all 7) are our children.
