Fireplace Mantle

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Fireplaces first appeared in houses for purely functional reasons: they offered a safe place to cook meals and provide heat. Because of the importance of those two functions, and the size of early fireplaces, they also became domestic focal points. In time, people started adding decorative touches to the area around the fireplace. They put up shelves and then added simple trim to cover the gap between the wall and the edge of the firebox. Before long, these simple additions developed into complex and elaborate mantles inspired by Greek and Roman temples, baroque and Victorian ornamentation and more contemporary arts and crafts styles. Fireplaces evolved from functional to architectural focal points.

In this episode of Trading Spaces, both sets of homeowners expressed an urgent desire to have something done with their very plain fireplaces. Their houses, like those of their other neighbors, had been built by the same contractor, and all of them had simple fireplace surrounds, with nondescript tile borders and a small shelf. The challenge for the designers, and for carpenter Ty, was to create a mantle in each house that managed to showcase the fireplace, turning it into a true focal point in the room. With contemporary house styles such as these, those traditional mantle styles can look completely out of place. Rather than search for historic precedents, Gen and Doug picked up clues from the existing houses to help shape their designs. This project description will not discuss in detail each of the mantles they designed, so much as it will try to synthesize the two different approaches and offer some general guidelines on how you might build your own.

Building a relatively simple mantle is not a tough task for most do-it-yourselfers. But more elaborate designs are, as Ty expressed it, "a lot of work." Before you start planning your own mantle, you might want to shop around to see what is available in manufactured mantles. There are many styles available these days, in sizes that will fit most of the fireplaces in newer homes. One properly sized kit will contain all of the parts you need along with detailed assembly and installation instructions, and you may be able to find exactly what you want.

Safety First

It is hard to talk about fireplaces without first talking about fires. Building codes often have very specific regulations regarding what kinds of material can be placed near the fireplace opening. Check with your building department before you do anything else to learn what those regulations are in your area. It is common for codes to require that combustible materials be placed at least 6 to 12 inches away from the opening. Newer direct-vent gas-fired fireplaces often have different requirements than old-fashioned log-burning fireplaces. If you have the latter, you might also want to see about getting the chimney cleaned and, if necessary, repaired before adding a nice new mantle.

Design Options

It is best if the mantle style fits in with the style of the house and its furnishings. You may want to look at the casing around the doors and windows of your home to get some initial ideas. Furniture can also offer inspiration. Doug designed his mantle to mimic the knotty pine armoire sitting near the fireplace.

A basic mantle is composed of vertical columns (or pilasters) on each side and a horizontal frieze, with a shelf along the top. More elaborate designs have another section above the shelf (called the "overmantle"), but most do-it-yourselfers will be happy with a simple mantle. To decorate the wall above the shelf, add a mirror or framed painting. To ensure a comfortable sense of proportion, make the frieze taller than the width of the columns.

Traditional styles of mantles often utilize frame-and-panel construction or they have fluted columns. This kind of work tends to require serious woodworking skills and tools to match, but there are simpler ways to achieve similar results. You can add border strips around the column and frieze boards to create an illusion of frame-and-panel construction. Flutes can be cut into each piece using a plunge router and suitable bit, but you can produce much the same effect by attaching pieces of half-round molding instead. You can also attach pieces of pilaster molding, if your lumberyard or home improvement store carries it.

Design Options (cont'd)

One of the big decisions is whether you want a painted or a natural wood appearance. For painted finishes, you can use medium-density fiberboard (MDF), which is sold in large sheets, or you can use boards of poplar or pine. If you prefer a natural wood mantle, you may want to try and match other wood surfaces in the house, such as hardwood floors, window and door trim or furniture. White oak would be a good choice in almost any home, while knotty pine would be a nice choice for a somewhat rustic design. To cut costs and expand your design opportunities, you could use oak boards for the borders and shelf of your mantle, and oak-veneer plywood to fill in the spaces in between. Keep in mind, though, that when using plywood you need to think about how you will cover the edges. Straight edges can be covered with solid wood or molding, while curved edges are best covered with thin strips of matching veneer.

Plan Ahead

For inspiration, look for photographs of mantles in home design magazines, study mantles in houses you visit, and look at the manufactured mantles available. Don't be surprised if every one of them looks different in some way. Try to gather some inspiration regarding proper proportion and decorative touches.

Measure your fireplace opening and sketch it to scale on a piece of graph paper. To the drawing, add the existing surround (usually brick or tile) and the mantleshelf, if you have one. Draw lines to indicate the required minimum clearances between the fireplace opening and any combustible materials, and then begin sketching ideas for your new mantle. If you have a skimpy mantleshelf that you want to expand, try to arrange your new plans to work around it rather than assume that you have to remove it. Removal can cause some damage to the surrounding surfaces, while leaving the shelf in place may provide you with a good surface for attaching the new shelf.

Build the Columns

Fireplaces usually stick out from the surrounding wall at least a little. The bump out might be the full thickness of a brick or two, or perhaps little more than the thickness of the existing tile surround. Either way, it is easiest to build the mantle by attaching it one piece at a time to the surround, rather than to construct the whole mantle first and then install it.

Each column consists of two boards, one down the face and another that forms the corner. If the bump out is fairly small, this corner board can extend to the wall. Cut the face boards to size, allowing for each one to extend ¾ inch beyond the edge of the fireplace to cover the side board. Then measure and cut the side boards. Attach the boards with nails, screws or, if you have a biscuit joiner, biscuits. Choose your fastener based on the type of finish you plan for the mantle. If you are painting, then it is easy to fill large screw holes with putty. If you are using nice wood that you intend to cover with a clear finish, then use biscuits, which are hidden, or finish nails, which produce small holes. Attach the columns to the fireplace with construction adhesive and suitable fasteners (masonry screws or anchors will be necessary for brick or tile surrounds).

Attach the Frieze

Cut the frieze to fit between the columns. The frieze does not have to be a rectangle. Especially if you are using MDF or plywood, it is easy to cut an arched frieze, which looks particularly nice over an arched firebox opening. Measure and cut carefully so that the fit is tight, then attach the frieze to the fireplace just as you did the columns, making sure that the top is perfectly level.

Dress Up the Mantle

With the columns and frieze as your base, you can now dress up the mantle in any number of ways. Even an informal style looks good with solid blocks at the tops and bottoms of each column. You can then fill in the spaces with strips of molding. Screen bead, cove and half-round molding can all be used, separately or together, to create a unique mantle.

Add the Shelf

If you want to include a shelf on your mantle, give some thought to how it will be attached. There are several possibilities. The simplest approach is to buy and install wood brackets. A more formal look can be achieved by using small metal brackets to fasten the shelf to the frieze, and then covering the brackets with a piece of cove molding. A strip of dentil or base-cap molding along the bottom edge of the cove would add even more substance. Or you can dispense with brackets all together and instead add a few layers of boards and trim to build out a strong ledge for the shelf to sit on. Make the shelf long enough to overlap each side of the mantle.

Finishing Up

Countersink all screw and nail heads. For a paint job, use regular wood putty to fill the holes. For a natural wood finish, use a wood putty formulated to mimic the color of the wood you use. Sand the surface with fine-grit sandpaper. For a painted finish, apply a coat of primer first, then sand, then add two coats of paint. Apply a clear or tinted wood finish as directed on the label.