Posting about this project is L-O-N-G overdue, and I'm beyond excited to share it with you today. So without further delay, here's my post about upcycling a mantle I found on Craigslist several months ago.
When we first moved into our house last year and spent our first Christmas here, we realized we had no place to hang our stockings. The horror!!!! So, naturally I started brainstorming and figuring out a way to rectify that situation in 2011. Here's what our fireplace area looked like before this project started.
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| BEFORE: Basic black tiles surround the gas fireplace insert |
I knew I didn't want to hire a carpenter to build a mantle, and I knew whatever I came up with needed to be inexpensive, so I started looking through Craiglist to see if I could find someone selling an old mantle. The price ranges and appearances of the mantles that were for sale varied widely, but I managed to find one that was listed for $75, the dimensions were super close to what we needed, and I liked the clean lines on this particular one. I pitched the idea to Mr. Man and he reluctantly agreed to hook the trailer up to the car and make the trip to
just look at the mantle and see if he thought it would work. When we arrived, I knew immediately that it was "the one". Check it out... and I talked the lady selling it down to $40. Score.
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Overall the mantle was in decent shape, but it needed
quite a bit of wood filler. |
So, now that you've seen our fireplace and the mantle before, let's talk about all the supplies I used to refinish my Craigslist find and attach it to the wall.
{Refinishing In 5 Easy Steps}
1) FILL THE WOOD: I used Elmer's paintable wood filler to fill in all of the damage and dings in the wood. I had to do this in several steps because it's important to sand them down and ensure everything is even before you start priming. I always use a medium, then fine grit sandpaper for this step.
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| Filling in the cracks, dings and missing wood spots. |
2) SAND: Once I had the wood filled and in good condition, I sanded the entire mantle down using a medium grit sandpaper to remove the existing finish. Once the finish was removed, I used a fine grit sandpaper to smooth the surface out.
3) PRIME: Once everything was sanded, I applied three coats of Kilz primer. Yes, three. It took that many to get a good base.
4) PAINT: Once the priming was complete (following the manufacturers application instructions), I applied two coats of Glidden's Ultra-Hide Paint in basic off-the-shelf white. The trim in our house is basic builder white, and I wanted the mantle to match the trim, so I thought this would be my best bet.
5) SEAL: I used Polycrylic to seal the mantle to keep it from getting damaged.
{Installation}
Once the mantle was refinished, it was time to start the process of getting it installed. Before we could do that, though, we had to remove the existing black tiles from the fireplace surround. I didn't take a lot of pictures of this step because it was beyond messy and beyond frustrating. The tiles were stuck directly on the drywall with lots of thick, concrete like grout "stuff". How's that for descriptive? My basic point here is that when we took the tiles down, the drywall came with them. NOT GOOD.
Mr. Man and I exchanged quite a few nervous glances during this part of the process, and we almost decided to just leave the black tiles on at one point. BUT, he actually encouraged me to go on....Nothing a little new drywall and mud can't fix. Here's a mid-point picture of our process of fixing the walls with new drywall.
Once we had the walls repaired, installing the mantle was actually quite easy. I did it by myself one afternoon while Mr. Man was at work. When he got home, I wasn't quite sure if he was impressed or nervous?! :)
To install the mantle, I just used my drill and bits to create holes in the sides of the mantle slightly larger than the heads of my 3.5 inch wood screws. By creating holes in the mantle surround slightly larger than the heads of the screws, I was able to countersink my screws and then fill the holes with wood filler so you would never see them. In the picture below, you can see a few of the tan looking spots where I've started filling in the screw holes with wood filler. I ended up using about 8 screws to attach the mantle onto the wall, and it is SUPER secure.
Once the mantle was installed, I cleaned up my screw holes and painted and sealed them to be uniform with the rest of the mantle. I also used paintable caulk to fill in any gaps between the edges of the mantle and the wall. Once all of that was done, it was on to the next part of the project; tiling the extra space above the top of the fireplace surround (see in the picture above).
I'm going to save the tiling tutorial for the next post, but in the meantime, here's a sneak peek of what the fireplace and upcycled mantle looked like after I was all done!
This part of our house is not finished yet, though! I still want to figure out a solution to cover up that TV niche about the mantle. We've had quotes on framing it in and putting drywall over it, but most estimates have come back at well over $500. Not exactly something I want to drop that kind of dough on.... I've been trying to think of other inexpensive ideas, and the one that is winning right now is a big canvas that I could paint myself. We could just take it down and put it up whenever we wanted to cover the niche. But, I don't really know if that's a feasible solution. Any of you have other ideas? I would L-O-V-E to hear them.
Hopefully, I'll be back soon with the tiling tutorial. In the meantime, I hope everyone is having a great week. "See" you again soon!
