How To Install A Solid Wood Mantel

Our mantel above the fireplace in our family room up until now has been a piece of oak that wasn't quite thick enough. It's been more or less a place holder. The plan from the first was to install a reclaimed timber mantel. Merely, like so many other things, when you are trying to finish a business firm to move into, you lot run out of time. You can read virtually one of these "other things" in our How to install floating shelves article.

Now that I've finally gotten around to installing that reclaimed timber mantel. I tin can evidence you how I did it.

The first affair I had to do was find a reclaimed timber. I contacted one of my friends who has an old barn, but unfortunately he already given away all of the good stuff. Since I didn't know any other people with old barns, I went to a local place that sales reclaimed befouled woods and timbers. They had a ton of stuff, and to be honest, it was a flake overwhelming. After searching for near thirty minutes, I constitute a piece that would work perfectly.

They cut it to length and wire brushed it to take off the crude places and get in a little smoother. They offered to sand information technology, but this would accept removed the aged color from the woods. Since the piece I picked was plenty long enough, I had them cut two wedge pieces that I could use as corbels underneath the mantel.

When nosotros were building, we anchored two pieces of rebar to the studs in a higher place the fireplace. You can encounter them coming though the shiplap below.

I don't have a film showing the framing, but here is a return that shows how nosotros ran the rebar through the studs in the wall.

The rebar volition slide into holes on the back of the mantel. To starting time figuring the placement of the holes, I measured the distance between each piece of rebar. Then on the dorsum of the mantel, I measured and marked the centre. I took the altitude betwixt the rebar, divided by ii, and measured out this number from the heart. Here I fabricated a mark. And so on these marks I measured one and half inches from the top edge of the mantel and made another mark crossing the previous one. This marked where the holes needed to exist drilled.

Using a 1/four inch drill scrap, I drilled a pilot hole for the bigger drill bit. It'southward extremely important to become your hole exactly on the mark. That fashion your holes are in the correct place, which means your mantel will be level.

Then I drilled into the airplane pilot hole using the three/4 inch bit. It'south also extremely important that you lot drill your holes direct so the mantel will slide onto the rebar correctly.

Once the holes were drilled for the rebar, the next step was to mountain the corbels on the bottom of the mantel. In this blazon of installation, the corbels are purely for looks. They don't support whatever of the mantel wait. With this being the case, I decide to simply adhere each corbel to the bottom using dowel screws.

I started past determining the placement of the corbels. I wanted the outside edge of each one to line up with the outside border of the granite fireplace surround. Once I knew where I wanted them, I placed them on the bottom side of the mantel and marked an outline.

Then in the middle of the outlined area, I drilled a pilot hole for the dowel screw.

Later twisting in the dowel screw with a pair of pliers, I measured and marked the hole placement on the bottom of the corbel. I drilled an identical pilot hole for the dowel screw on the bottom of the corbel.

Then I simply twisted it on.

And repeated these same steps for the other corbel. Hither you can see the completed mantel ready to exist installed.

The next and terminal step was the moment of truth. I got to find out if I measured and drilled the holes correctly. With Brookes help, I lifted the mantel upwardly onto the two pieces of rebar and information technology slid into place perfectly.

One concern I had was if the mantel needed to exist secured to the wall, but once it was in place, I could tell it wasn't going anywhere. It takes quite a chip of strength to pull it abroad from the wall. Merely every installation is different. If yous do need to secure it in place, you could run a screw at an angle through the bottom of the mantel into the wall.

And that's it, we couldn't be happier with the fashion this turned out. Installation was pretty easy, and the hardest part was finding the right piece of wood. Ane thing I dear about the slice we picked out is all of the cracks and blast holes.