“Builder’s grade, plain old wood painted at a screaming white shade.” This was inside decorator Cathy Zaeske’s lament seeing her ho-hum mantel. “It screamed ‘wrong’ to me because the day we moved in,” she says. The scale and appearance of the stark white mantel did not stand up to the two-story vaulted ceiling and the flagstone fireplace surround. She tried painting it a honey shade to help it blend in, but in the long run, she just couldn’t live with this. It was time to get a job. Beginning with a crude sketch, in five times complete (two to construct and set up; two to three to sew), Zaeske needed a stunning live-edge mantel that brought harmony to her living space. Here’s how she did it.
Before Photo
The mantel did not relate to anything in the rest of the room, and also that it was a part of the area’s focal point exacerbated the problem. “I was willing to do anything to make the mantel disappear,” Zaeske says.
Instead of making it vanish, Zaeske determined it was a fantastic chance. She had wanted to use live-edge wood in her home for quite a while, and this looked just the chance to achieve that.
She needed a crystal-clear vision in her head, but couldn’t discover any real-life examples of a floating live-edge mantel to demonstrate her carpenter, so she started doodling it.
Your Room From Cathy Zaeske
AFTER: Here’s a glimpse at the final product. The mantel fits the rest of the fireplace surround in scale and look, and gets the appropriate presence in the room, along with also the live-edge wood adds a warm and interesting feel. On to the particulars of how she did it.
Zaeske discovered the wood at Owl Lumber at Des Plaines, Illinois. “They were amazingly patient and helpful as I scrutinized each slab,” she says. “I wanted the color variation, graining and size just perfect.” The slab cost $700.
“The lumberyard thoroughly cut on the slab into three boards of my preferred size, and we hauled the treasure home in my job phone — I suggest minivan,” she says.
Zaeske had a fantastic working relationship with a carpenter (he had worked with her on other endeavors(such as this swinging daybed). “He managed to bring my crude sketch to life,” she says.
Cutting and Cutting the corners required extreme attention to detail, as they needed to line up just right to attain the wraparound appearance.
To get a more smooth appearance, her carpenter used cookies and wood glue to hold the borders in place.
He and his associate then added bottom and top pieces to create a box — which makes the mantel seem to float.
The present mantel did come in handy for something — it provided a good foundation for the new piece. They slid the new box directly over it, after adding some additional support for the weight of their new mantel.
The cassette marks signify where the new frame and the bottom of the art will hang — more on this in a moment.
Hint: Utilize sawdust to fill in the pits on a job like this.
“The pits were tight but only a hair off at a few places,” Zaeske says. “By packaging in a bit of sawdust with his finger, my carpenter made them to stay in place. Then the varnish sealed it beautifully.”
To save some money, Zaeske varnished the new mantel herself. She used six coats of Minwax Wipe-On Polyurethane, lightly sanding between each coat. While happy with the consequences, she admits if she needed to do it, she’d have used tung oil before varnishing, because it would sink and push the graining outward.
Your Favorite Room From Cathy Zaeske
Here you may see how the hard work about the corners paid off.
“We left the very bottom edge rough; it adds another dimension with a third very dark, almost black tone,” Zaeske describes. “I love the various lines, colours and variations of this wood. It’s nature’s way of color blocking.”
The lighter hues at the bottom portion pick up about the honey colours of this flagstone encircle, while the upper part works with all the red wall and present brown tones in the room.
Your Favorite Room From Cathy Zaeske
The mantel has inspired Zaeske to expand her own layout horizons at home. She is enjoying going from a more traditional style into a transitional-eclectic style and blending new and old, rustic and sleek.
Your Favorite Room From Cathy Zaeske
For example, she has been playing with the scale and materials of mantel accessories. While one instinct told her to go for taller candlestick lamps for scale, she is trying out some short chrome lamps with black shades for contrast.
She also nixed placing a TV over the fireplace. “The top of the mantel reaches 70 inches — not only is that too large to comfortably see a wall-mounted TV, but by placing the TV at the corner, it allows us to also take in the pretty view out our big windows,” she says.
Your Favorite Room From Cathy Zaeske
Following the mantel was in place, Zaeske believed her triptych needed a tweak. She had a frame made with 11/2- by 11/2-inch strips, then painted it light gray.
“it’s very special to us, as it is the same tree and view that we consider some time sitting by the fire in our cherished family cottage in Door County, Wisconsin,” she says. “Those minutes are so very valuable that I knew I needed to bring that peaceful feeling home.” The angle and placement of the image give her the same vantage point of this tree that she’s in the next photograph.
“The new frame functions on so many levels — its clean lines help move the space from traditional to transitional; it is airy and light; it supplies pleasing contrast with the walls; it ties in with all the stone of the fireplace; and it literally frames my favorite tree in the world, which makes the focal point additional notable,” she says.
Wall paint: Confederate Red, Benjamin Moore
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