Mantel Makeover: From Builder's Grade to Live-Edge Wood

“Builder's grade, plain old wood painted in a screaming white shade." This was interior decorator Cathy Zaeske's lament regarding her ho-hum mantel. "It screamed 'wrong' to me since the day we moved in," she says. The scale and look of this stark white mantel did not stand up to the two-story vaulted ceiling and the flagstone fireplace surround. She tried painting it a honey color to help it blend in, but in the end, she simply could not live with it. It was time for a project. Starting with a crude sketch, in five days total (two to build and install; two to three to varnish), Zaeske had a stunning live-edge mantel that brought harmony to her family room. Here's how she did it.

The mantel did not relate to anything in the rest of the room, and the fact that it was part of the room's focal point exacerbated the problem. "I was willing to do anything to make the mantel disappear," Zaeske says.


Instead of making it disappear, Zaeske decided it was a great opportunity to make it stand out. She had wanted to use live-edge wood in her house for a long time, and this seemed just the opportunity to do so.

She had a crystal-clear vision in her head, but could not find any real-life examples of a floating live-edge mantel to show her carpenter, so she started doodling it.


AFTER: Here's a peek at the finished product. Now the mantel fits the rest of the fireplace surround in look and scale, and has the appropriate presence in the room, and the live-edge wood adds a warm and interesting texture. Now on to the details of how she did it.


Zaeske found the wood at Owl Lumber in Des Plaines, Illinois. "They were incredibly helpful and patient as I scrutinized each slab," she says. "I wanted the color variation, graining and size just right." The slab cost $700.


"The lumberyard meticulously cut the slab into three planks of my desired size, and we hauled the treasure home in my project mobile — I mean minivan," she says.


Zaeske already had a great working relationship with a carpenter (he had worked with her on other projects, like this swinging daybed). "He was able to bring my crude sketch to life," she says.


Cutting and measuring the corners took extreme attention to detail, as they needed to line up just right to achieve the wraparound look.


To get a more seamless look, her carpenter used biscuits and wood glue to hold the edges in place.


He and his associate then added top and bottom pieces to create a box — making the mantel appear to float.





The existing mantel did come in handy for something — it provided a good base for the new piece. They slid the new box right over it, after adding some additional support for the weight of the new mantel.

The tape marks represent where the new frame and the bottom of the artwork will hang — more on that in a minute.


Tip: Use sawdust to fill in the seams on a project like this.

"The seams were really tight but just a hair off in a couple of places," Zaeske says. "By packing in a bit of sawdust with his finger, my carpenter got them to stay in place. Then the varnish sealed it in beautifully."


To save some money, Zaeske varnished the new mantel herself. She used six coats of Minwax Wipe-On Polyurethane, lightly sanding between each coat. While pleased with the results, she admits if she had to do it over, she would have used tung oil before varnishing, because it would sink in and visually push the graining outward.


Here you can see how the hard work on the corners paid off.


"We left the very bottom edge rough; it adds another dimension with a third very dark, almost black tone," Zaeske describes. "I love the different lines, colors and variations of the wood. It's nature's way of color blocking."

The lighter hues in the bottom portion pick up on the honey colors of the flagstone surround, while the upper portion works with the red wall and existing brown tones in the room.


The mantel has inspired Zaeske to expand her own design horizons at home. She's enjoying moving from a more traditional style to a transitional-eclectic style and mixing old and new, rustic and sleek.


For example, she's been playing around with the scale and materials of mantel accessories. While one instinct told her to go for taller candlestick lamps for scale, she's trying out some short chrome lamps with black shades for contrast.

She also nixed putting a TV over the fireplace. "The top of the mantel reaches 70 inches — not only is that too high to comfortably watch a wall-mounted TV, but by placing the TV in the corner, it allows us to also take in the pretty view out our large windows," she says.


After the mantel was in place, Zaeske thought her triptych needed a tweak. She had a frame made with 1½- by 1½-inch strips, then painted it light gray.

"It is very special to us, as it is the same tree and view that we look at while sitting by the fire at our beloved family cabin in Door County, Wisconsin," she says. "Those moments are so very precious that I knew I wanted to bring that peaceful feeling home." The angle and placement of the image give her the same vantage point of the tree that she has in the next photo.





"The new frame works on so many levels — its clean lines help move the room from traditional to transitional; it is light and airy; it provides pleasing contrast with the wall; it ties in with the stone of the fireplace; and it literally frames my favorite tree in the world, making the focal point extra prominent," she says.

Wall paint: Confederate Red, Benjamin Moore

Browse live-edge mantels

URL: Mantel Makeover: From Builder's Grade to Live-Edge Wood http://www.decor-ideas.org/cases-view-id-21765.html