Mantle Maven

First off, I am going to let you know that I will be unapologetically bragging on my husband throughout this post.

I will say - David is stubborn. I'm impatient. So I'm more prone to "let's buy it" vs. "let's build it from scratch." When he told me he wanted to build the mantle from scratch, I was pretty sure he was crazy, but we went with it.

Back in this post, I explained how we hired a mason to remove the false front of the existing fireplace and patch the brick. And how we went to a salvage yard to try to find a mantle to go there, but couldn't find any that would fit just right. So, David set out to build the mantle himself.

First, we had to get the fireplace prepped. The fireplace looked like this after the mason was done.

We hired a mason to expose the original fireplace

David next had to frame in the fireplace surround. He cut all his boards to length, then pieced them together in the living room lying down on the floor. We raised it up and voila...we had a frame to attach to the existing fireplace.

Cutting the bottom brace off the frame. Love those socks!

The frame in place

Let's take a moment to admire the beauty of that shiplap that I worked so hard on. Just kidding. The frame! David put two 2x6 boards in the middle of the upper part of the frame so that when we hang our TV above the fireplace, the TV mounting bracket can be attached directly to those boards.

Next, sheetrock. Ugh. Heavy, messy stuff. I may have nightmares tonight just thinking about the mess it made. BUT - it went up a lot easier than we thought.

Sheet rock attached to the frame and with a first coat of mud, getting ready to be primed and painted

David then painted the sheetrock (and the ceiling, and the rest of the room). And then, the fun part - he started on the mantle.

Now, our inspiration. You can't see much of it, and it was filthy, but you get the idea! The grooves, the different dimensions/layers, the corbels, etc.

We found this mantle at Hailey's Salvage in Nashville and used this picture and some scaled drawings David made of it to build the mantle for our house

David started with a sheet of MDF, and ripped it down with a table saw to the size boards he needed. Then, he cut the grooves into it using different router bits. That's the part that absolutely amazes me. He cut all those little grooves into the wood like he'd done it 100 times before. But he hadn't. And it's perfect. 

Check out all those grooves masterfully routed into the MDF ;)

So then, the really difficult part. We needed corbels. We should've traced one at the salvage yard, but didn't. So David found a cad program to use online, drew it out on that program, and then sent it to the genius me. I cut it out of card stock on my Silhouette Portrait (it's a vinyl/fabric/card stock cutting machine that's amazing and so much fun!).

Pattern for the corbel that David drew online and I cut with my Portrait

Back to the real work. He cut out the corbels with a jigsaw, sanded them down with a belt sander to smooth out the edges, and then it was all ready to be painted.

We've quickly realized how important the painting process is to making things look professionally finished. David used bin tinted shellac primer to seal the MDF, then used Sherwin Williams oil-based pro classic semi-gloss with Flood penetrol, which is a dry-time extender and leveling agent. (I just spoke Greek. Questions? Ask David.) The finish is so pretty, smooth, and shiny!

After finishing up the paint job, he brought it into the house and attached it to the sheetrock. We were hoping to just use construction adhesive, but there wasn't enough surface area to make it stick. So we screwed it in, and will be covering up the screws with baseboards along the bottom (which we had already planned on adding) and trim under the top.

The semi-finished mantle!

I couldn't be more excited about the way it looks. It's absolutely beautiful. I'm proud of him and how close to the old mantle we found at the salvage yard this one looks (except in MUCH better shape and the perfect size for our opening).

We still need to finish trimming it out (you can see the exposed frame here, which will be covered), but we want to run the wiring for the TV first (HDMI cables and such).

Next up - the hearth. The brick on the hearth had been removed prior to us buying the house, but we didn't like the concrete slab showing, so decided to cover it with tile. We chose this mosaic tile from Lowes and light gray grout.

David cut the tiles to size using a corded Dremel and a diamond blade, which we were afraid would be terrible but ended up not being too bad (says the wife who busied herself in another part of the house while that work was going on and who did none of the cutting work). We laid the tile out ahead of time to get all the pieces cut, then applied the mastic, and slowly but surely laid the tile sheets.

Laying the mosaic tile on the hearth

I have to say this was a process we were pretty nervous about as it was our first tiling job (well David's first...Dad let me tile and grout a step in their garage when I was in middle school). But it went pretty smoothly!

Applying the grout

The grout looks pretty dark here but dried much lighter. And look at that beautifully routed mantle!

The (not quite) finished product

We love how the tile looks on the hearth!

Next on the hearth, we need to caulk/grout by the firebox and add trim around the outside edges (likely stained to match the floor).

I'm so proud of how this project turned out! It's amazing what David has pushed himself to learn and do since we bought our olive on Olive. This home is so full of character, but it's fun getting to add even more with the transoms, the custom mantle and hearth, exposing the shiplap, and other things we have done or plan to do. I can't wait for the living room to be finished so we can put our feet up and enjoy that space!

And for good measure...here's a photo of what the fireplace looked like before we moved in:

Progress

It's been way too long since I've posted, and I have so many fun projects to give updates about! I'll try to get caught up over the next couple of weeks.

Several weeks ago, I posted here about David's work in creating an opening for the transom. Well, we've finally gotten it in place and it looks amazing! It still needs trim and the wall above it in the dining room needs to be sheet rocked, but we have a glimpse of the finished product and I'm sooooo excited about it!

This is the doorway between the living room and the dining room.

We have decided to stain the transoms instead of painting them (since we'll be staining the doors; all the trim in the house will be white), and chose the 9-light pattern to mimic the pattern in the glass cabinets in the kitchen and in the upstairs window. We ordered the transom raw from Transoms Direct - they custom built it, then shipped to us. David stained it, framed the new doorway, and hung it. The doorway still hasn't been trimmed out, but we'll get there. We're hoping to decide what we want to do in the dining room before we place the trim (and replace the drywall above the door in the dining room).

Oh, and the mess. Please pardon the mess in the living room. Patching all the walls and the ceiling, mudding the drywall above the fireplace...I had no idea how huge of a mess that would make! The sheetrock dust was EVERYWHERE. Actually, it still is everywhere. Every time I think it's all cleaned up, I find another coated surface. Regardless, it has been so much fun to paint the walls and ceiling and see it get closer to being finished.

Drywall complete on the fireplace surround, and patching around the windows and doors.

Patched and primed!

Next up...working on the mantle. I can't wait to show you that project. David has done an amazing job!

Opening Doors

One of the things I've learned about fixing up an older home is that there is no such thing as a small decision. It seems like every decision has a big, long-term impact.

With the living room, for example, we can't just decide on a style of crown molding for that room. What we choose will eventually be installed throughout the house, so we have to make sure we choose the right thing from the get-go.

Another one of those things is the doors in the house. Most of them have coats upon coats of paint from throughout the years. We had tossed around the idea of stripping them then repainting so that you could see the detail in the doors that is hidden by the coats of paint. But, David had a better idea.

Probably two or three weeks after we moved in, if it was even that long after, David took off the door to our bedroom. I don't think I was here or I might have objected. :)

Regardless, that door was a thorn in my side for weeks. He researched the best way to strip a door and decided to sand it. Countless sheets of sandpaper later, without much progress to show for all his work, he grabbed some paint stripper from Lowe's and tried that instead. Being our usual impatient selves, the first coat of stripper he didn't give long enough to have time to really work on the paint. But the next coat was magic. Imagine that - paint stripper actually strips paint.

He painstakingly worked on this door for a while, off and on. Every morning when I'd take Sagan out to the garage to get in my car to head for daycare, she'd comment on the big mess her daddy was making. (One such mess was caused by him using the belt sander and having some socks lying nearby because he was using those to clean the crevices of the door - the sander ate the sock. I'm still finding sock shreds in the garage.)

But, the result was soooooo worth it.

Instead of painting the door, we decided (actually - I'll give credit where credit is due: David decided) to stain it. It looks amazing!

David used the Early American stain from Minwax Wood Finish.

After one coat of stain, he applied two coats of Minwax Polycrylic to seal the door, protect it, and give it a shine.

We finally have a door for our bedroom again!

I'm super excited about the finished product. The color looks so rich against the white trim in the house. 

So - to my earlier point. We've now decided we would like all the doors in the house to be stained instead of painted (see...one small project equals a decision that impacts the rest of the house). I'm not looking forward to having to do this on the 10,000 other doors in the house. But, we'll get there eventually!

And, on a side note, the electricians did come last week (or was that two weeks ago? Time flies!) and we now have LIGHTS in our living room! Real, live, overhead lights! It's amazing! We have been very busy at work in there. More on that coming soon!