Hey guys! I hope you’re all having a great week! Today I’m sharing with you how we made a DIY Custom Mantle for our Airstone fireplace. If you haven’t seen our before/afters of our fireplace makeover-check it out because I’m sure it will inspire you! We totally transformed the old fireplace using Airstone (seriously, the before/afters will amaze you) and one of the things we had to make for the new fireplace was a mantle. Brandon was so hesitant about building our own. He was worried it would look “cheap” or “homemade” considering he had his previous mantle custom-made by professionals and spent a couple hundred dollars in the process. However, we couldn’t use the old mantle with the Airstone because the depth of the Airstone would have “eaten up” the mantle and we would have had maybe an inch worth of shelf space, if we wanted to use the mantle. So, a new mantle was a necessity. We searched for ideas and inspiration online, and none were made with Airstone measurements in mind so we tweaked some ideas into our own in order to acquire the depth of the Airstone. Once we figured out what measurements we needed Brandon was more confident that we could DIY this without making it look cheap or inexpensive. We didn’t use a router to create any fancy cuts, just some inexpensive tricks to create a custom mantle.
We’re really happy with how it turned out. It looks high-end and compliments the Airstone and the wood beam ceilings beautifully.
Print the directions here.
You will need:
Obviously your dimensions may be different, so be sure to measure your fireplace accordingly and adjust your lengths to your liking. Using our measurements, here is what you need for one DIY mantel shelf:
- Two wooden corbels
- One 2×8 cut to your desired length
- One 1×8 cut to your desired length
- One 1×4 cut to your desired length
- One piece of 3/4″ cove molding cut at 45° to your desired length (*you’re going to trim your 1×4 with the cove molding, so make sure you cut it to fit the length of your 1×4)
- One piece of 3/4″ cove molding cut straight on the right and 45° on left to 3.5″ on the inner edge (this is also to trim your 1×4 which is actually 3.5″ wide)
- One piece** of 3/4″ cove molding cut straight on the left and 45° on right to 3.5″ on the inner edge (this is also to trim your 1×4 which is actually 3.5″ wide)
- Wood glue or finishing nails
- Stain (we used this one)
- Wood clamps (if using wood glue)
- Nail set (if using finishing nails)
Directions:
Stain your pieces, we used this one. Stain to your desired tone and allow all the pieces to dry completely.
Frame your 1×4 with the cove molding using wood glue and adhere them together to dry using wood clamps
Attach the rest of the pieces pieces together using finishing nails or wood glue. If it seems confusing, just refer to the picture above.
- If you decide against using wood glue and want to use finishing nails, use a nail set for countersinking the nails. You will just hammer the finishing nails into the wood using the nail set. Then fill the holes with wood filler and stain your pieces afterwords.
We made our mantle longer than the width of the Airstone and screwed our mantle into the wall using screws. If you’re worried about the screws showing you can always patch it up with some wood filler, this one is my favorite. Be sure to stain afterwords.
Here is what it looks like currently, to see the full living room transformation (on a budget) click here.
What do you guys think? Will you be attempting to DIY your own fireplace mantle anytime in the near future? If so, don’t by shy, share some photos to inspire others!
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