Two-Story Mantle

Mike and Troy were working on various projects around this fine estate in Peninsula, Ohio, when the home owners approached them about their existing mantle:

They felt that the existing mantle looked a little small and under detailed, considering the vaulted two story ceiling and the trim details through out the rest of the house. We couldn’t agree more.

I drew up 6 or 7 sketches  to get some ideas flowing and to get a “feel” for what the homeowners’ had in their mind.

Once a basic deign was established I drew a up a detailed drawing and we went to work.

Mantles are built in layers. This particular mantle has MANY layers. We also wanted to make sure that we got all the dimensions and scale just right, meaning we didn’t want to over power the room with the mantle. So I drew the whole thing out on plywood to full scale, 2 stories high with a Sharpie.

It’s a good thing too, we changed a couple of the layers 2 or 3 times until the homeowners and I were comfortable with the size, detail and heights of the breast board and lid. It’s a lot easier to erase some Sharpie lines than remove and ruin a bunch of mouldings and pride! These full scale drawings also come in handy when building mantles like this as well. When there’s other carpenters helping to assemble this they can walk over and take real measurements and I have less questions to answer to.

Here’s the finished results:

We would like to thank the clients of this project, without them we would not be able to exercise our minds for design and our passion for the finest details.

We would also like to thank Home Finishers Guild, Inc who put the smoothest lacquer finish on the mantle. They are the greatest wood finishers on this planet.