A Simple Wood Project

[Jim Frye]

Hi everyone it's been awhile since I've posted. Got busy with election volunteering, summer yard work, arthritis, and a lack of something to do in the shop. Then, as usual, SWMBO came up with something. The factory fireplace mantle was too shallow (front to back) to decorate with much of anything, so off to the hardwood store for a piece of red oak. I cut a new top 1 1/2" larger than the existing mantle top, finished it to match the existing woodwork, and glued/brad nailed it atop the original mantle. Then things got real interesting. Most of my woodworking begins with SWMBO holding up a magazine or catalog picture and asking "Can you make this?" This time the picture was from Southern Living magazine and was of a brick fireplace surround. When our home was built the fireplace surround was beige marble. So the project became replacing the marble with what is called thin brick. Unfortunately, the brick chosen wasn't available as thin brick, so we purchased regular brick and had the supply house saw 3/4" thick slabs off of the front of each brick, increasing the cost of each brick from $1.00 to $6.00. Pricey, but doable as only 70 pieces were estimated. Anyway, a week later, we now have a brick fireplace. And I got "some" woodworking done.

[LCHIEN]

That's some expensive brick prep!

[twistsol]

Looks good.

[Black walnut]

Looks great Jim. Hard to see in the pic, did you profile the Mantle cap any or just break the edges?

[Jim Frye]

I copied the edge profile of the original top shelf. It was a classical cove and bead profile, so the top two layers mimic each other. I have been lucky as the finish guys that did our home left a gallon of the water based dye stain, so color matching is a breeze. I'll get a better picture of the mantle tonight after I get outside work done.