For 8 and a half months, I've been staring at the strange alcoves and mantle in the living room knowing I needed to do something to change things. The first thing I needed to do was change the mantle. Isn't it ridiculous?! It looks like it was designed in the 90s but the house was built in 2005.
I was really uncomfortable with the project because of how long it is. There are no pieces of wood that could span the whole 16.5' of it. I could have ended up spending a small fortune on really nice wood but I decided to go with hardboard and trim. I just needed something to go over it and make it stand out in a more interesting way. I have plans for the alcoves too. That will come in phase two, hopefully next week.
I started by cutting and painting all of the pieces of hardboard that would go over the existing mantle.
I started the installation with the top piece and discovered that I didn't have a good way to attach hardboard to drywall. My nail gun just pushed the nails straight through like it was cardboard...which it pretty much is. So, I glued the top piece down with liquid nails and called it good. I've since decided that I'd like a slightly more substantial piece on the top. I'll figure that out some time next week when I work on the rest of the alcove areas.
In order to attach the front piece, I decided I would line the trim along the top of it so that I could use the nail gun. I added liquid nails to the back of the hardboard to make it more secure, but only to the top half because the bottom half would have nothing to attach to.
The nails happily struck through the trim and the hardboard and into the frame of the existing mantle. The next step was to attach a bottom board. After becoming more aware of how difficult it can be to attach hardboard to anything, I decided to grab some 1 x 6s for the bottom. After using liquid nails and more finishing nails to attach the bottom trim piece on the front, I was able to nail the 1 x 6s to the bottom of the existing mantle and the trim on the bottom of the front piece.
Then I added vertical pieces to add some interest.
Next, I had to figure out what to do on the ends. I added more hardboard and then just added trim until I liked how it looked. Then I painted it some more.
I can't wait to work on the rest of the area now. There is so much more to do! Now where's my stud finder?
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